Page:Tom Brown's School Days.djvu/252

234 CHAPTER III.

Let Nature be your teacher, Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things. We murder to dissect— Enough of Science and of Art; Close up those barren leaves; Come forth, and bring with you a heart That watches and receives."—author:William Wordsworth

six weeks after the beginning of the half, as Tom and Arthur were sitting one night before supper beginning their verses, Arthur suddenly stopped, and looked up, and said, "Tom, do you know anything of Martin?"

"Yes," said Tom, taking his hand out of his back hair, and delighted to throw his Gradus ad Parnassum on to the sofa; "I know him pretty well. He's a very good fellow, but as mad as a hatter. He's called Madman, you know. And never was such a fellow for getting all sorts of rum things about him. He tamed two snakes last half, and used to carry them about in his pocket, and I'll be bound he's got some hedgehogs and rats in his cupboard now, and no one knows what besides."

"I should like very much to know him," said Arthur; "he was next to me in the form to-day,