Page:The Celestial Omnibus and Other Stories - Forster (1912).djvu/96



, whom; fugis, are you avoiding; ah demens, you silly ass; habitarunt di quoque, gods too have lived in; silvas, the woods.' Go ahead!"

I always brighten the classics—it is part of my system—and therefore I translated demens by "silly ass." But Miss Beaumont need not have made a note of the translation, and Ford, who knows better, need not have echoed after me. "Whom are you avoiding, you silly ass, gods too have lived in the woods."

"Ye—es," I replied, with scholarly hesitation. "Ye—es. Silvas—woods, wooded spaces, the country generally. Yes. Demens, of course, is de—mens. 'Ah, witless fellow! Gods, I say, even gods have dwelt in the woods ere now.

"But I thought gods always lived in the sky," said Mrs. Worters, interrupting our lesson for I think the third-and-twentieth time.