The next time I wrote home to my father, modestly implying that I was
short of cash, that a trap-bat would be acceptable, and that the
favorite goddess amongst the boys (whether Greek or Roman was very
immaterial) was Diva Moneta, I felt a glow of classical pride in signing
myself "your affectionate Peisistratos." The next post brought a sad
damper to my scholastic exultation. The letter ran thus:--

My Dear Son,--I prefer my old acquaintances Thucydides and
Pisistratus to Thoukudides and Peisistratos. Horace is familiar to
me, but Horatius is only known to me as Cocles. Pisistratus can
play at trap-ball; but I find no authority in pure Greek to allow
me to suppose that that game was known to Peisistratos. I should
be too happy to send you a drachma or so, but I have no coins in my
possession current at Athens at the time when Pisistratus was spelt
Peisistratos.--Your affectionate father,
A. CAXTON.

Verily, here indeed was the first practical embarrassment produced by
that melancholy anachronism which my father had so prophetically
deplored. However, nothing like experience to prove the value of
compromise in this world. Peisistratos continued to write exercises,
and a second letter from Pisistratus was followed by the trap-bat.




CHAPTER II.

I was somewhere about sixteen when, on going home for the holidays, I
found my mother's brother settled among the household Lares. Uncle