He said
there was no harm in using a translation to get a clue to hard passages,
if you tried all you could first to make them out without."
"Did he, though?" said Tom; "then Arthur must be wrong."
"Of course he is," said Gower--"the little prig. We'll only use the crib
when we can't construe without it.--Go ahead, East."
And on this agreement they started--Tom, satisfied with having made his
confession, and not sorry to have a locus penitentiae, and not to be
deprived altogether of the use of his old and faithful friend.
The boys went on as usual, each taking a sentence in turn, and the crib
being handed to the one whose turn it was to construe. Of course
Tom couldn't object to this, as, was it not simply lying there to be
appealed to in case the sentence should prove too hard altogether for
the construer? But it must be owned that Gower and East did not make
very tremendous exertions to conquer their sentences before having
recourse to its help. Tom, however, with the most heroic virtue and
gallantry, rushed into his sentence, searching in a high-minded manner
for nominative and verb, and turning over his dictionary frantically for
the first hard word that stopped him. But in the meantime Gower, who
was bent on getting to fives, would peep quietly into the crib, and then
suggest, "Don't you think this is the meaning?" "I think you must take
it this way, Brown.
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