Chapter 102: The Slingshot Method

"Are you a good shot with that slingshot?" Richard asked, bringing up a topic completely unrelated to Latin.

Tom hesitated.

The previous three tutors had all walked through the door with the exact same opening line:

"Come, let me assess your Latin first," or "Turn your textbook to page so-and-so."

"...I'm all right," he said, sounding guarded.

"What do you shoot at?"

"Squirrels, sparrows, the cat in the yard next door... That cat has it coming. It steals our fish."

"Did you hit them?"

"Missed the squirrel, hit a sparrow." He puffed out his chest. "Hit the cat twice."

"Where did you hit the cat?"

"In the backside." Tom grinned. "It jumped so high."

He held his hand out to show the height.

Charlotte frowned, clearly not understanding why the new tutor was chatting about slingshots.

Faint footsteps sounded outside the door; Mrs. Dawn was likely listening from the hallway instead of coming in.

Richard picked up a piece of gingerbread from the coffee table and tossed it lightly in his palm.

"Do you know why a slingshot can shoot a stone?"

"The rubber band launches it."

"Right. The farther back you pull the band, the greater the snap when you let go, and the farther the stone flies.

But have you noticed your fingers get the most tired when you pull it all the way back?"

"Yeah."

"Latin declensions work exactly the same way."

Tom's relaxed expression shifted to confusion.

"The changing endings of nouns are the rubber band.

You hold onto a root word and give it different endings. Each ending is like pulling the slingshot back at a different angle.

The trajectory changes, and so does the target."

He placed the gingerbread on the table and traced a 'Y' on its surface with his finger.

"First declension, second declension, third declension... you can think of them as three ways to draw the band.

The first way hits close targets, the second hits far ones, and the third is the trickiest angle, meant for shooting things hidden behind branches."

Tom tilted his head, staring at the gingerbread.

"You're saying every declension is a... way to shoot?"

"Pretty much." Richard snapped the gingerbread in half, handing one piece to Tom and keeping the other.

"For example, if you want to hit a sparrow at the top of a tree, you wouldn't use the same flat shot you used on the cat's backside, right?"

"Of course not. You have to pull it at an upward angle."

"Right. In Latin, 'pulling at an upward angle' is the dative or ablative case. It tells the other words in the sentence: watch out, I'm changing direction."

He picked up the sugar tongs and stood them up on the table like a tripod.

"The sparrow on the treetop is the nominative case. It's the subject, and it decides what the whole sentence does.

The stone is the accusative case; it gets launched by the slingshot. The rubber band is the verb, linking the nominative and accusative together."

Tom stared at the sugar tongs, forgetting to eat his gingerbread.

"Nominative, direct shot; accusative, flat shot; dative, upward angle; ablative..."

He thought for a moment. "What angle is the ablative case?"

"The ablative is putting the slingshot away when you stop shooting.

It means 'moving away from somewhere' or 'by means of something'."

"So the ablative case is putting away the slingshot."

"Close enough."

Tom stuffed his slingshot into his pocket and sat back down.

He pulled a book from behind his chair.

It was his Latin textbook. Several pages were dog-eared, and the cover was covered in doodles.

"All right, what page should you turn to now?" Richard glanced at the publication details on the book's spine.

"Page twelve, the first declension noun table." Tom willingly turned to the page.

This was the very thing his previous tutors had made him recite countless times—the table that caused his mind to wander before he even reached the second line.

But today, he suddenly found it quite interesting.

Beside each ending, his mind automatically summoned images of a slingshot pulled to different angles.

The -a was a direct shot, -am a flat shot, -ae an upward angle, and -ā was putting the slingshot away.

Richard didn't rush him. He just held his teacup, taking small sips.

After a moment, Tom closed the book.

"Rosa, rosam, rosae, rosā, rosa."

Five endings, without a single stutter.

Charlotte's teacup paused at her lips, hovering for a long moment before she set it down.

She looked at her brother, then at Richard.

"...Those are the five endings of the first declension." Her mouth parted in surprise.

"Yep." Tom waved the textbook. "The slingshot method. It's super easy to remember."

Out in the hallway, a middle-aged woman in loungewear stepped around the corner.

Mrs. Dawn shared Charlotte's facial features, though she was a size plumper, with a soft layer of flesh rounding her jawline.

She had clearly been listening outside the door the whole time; her footsteps had just given her away.

"Mrs. Dawn," Richard greeted, standing up.

"Please, sit." Mrs. Dawn walked into the small parlor and took a chair near the door.

Her gaze first fell on her son. Seeing that Tom had tucked his slingshot away and had his textbook spread open on his lap, she looked equally surprised.

"Mr. Williams, I heard a bit of your lesson from the hall."

"My apologies. The slingshot analogy might be a bit... crude."

"Crude? That's just a young man's sharp mind!" Mrs. Dawn chuckled.

"The last tutor couldn't even get Tom to recite the genitive case of rosa properly."

Tom chimed in, "That's because the last tutor wouldn't let me hold my slingshot."

"The last tutor didn't use a slingshot to teach you, either," Charlotte retorted.

She looked at Richard, seemingly checking off a tentative pass on her mental evaluation sheet.

"Mr. Williams, I'd like to confirm your schedule."

"Every Saturday and Sunday, one hour a day. Morning or afternoon is fine."

"Mornings are better. Tom can't sit still in the afternoons."

Charlotte flipped her small notebook to a page that already had several items listed.

"As for the fee, the reference standard provided by the Classical Society North District Office is two shillings a lesson."

Two shillings an hour, two hours a week—that came out to about sixteen shillings a month.

It was a decent sum, especially since the job wouldn't take up much time and tutoring the boy hardly required any preparation.

He was about to nod when Mrs. Dawn spoke up.

"Charlotte, I don't think two shillings is quite right."

Charlotte glanced at her mother.

Mrs. Dawn's gaze rested on Tom, who was squatting in his chair and flipping through his textbook.

"We paid that Royal Academy graduate two shillings an hour, and Tom drove him away in two days.

The grammar school teacher with eight years of experience got two shillings and sixpence, and he walked out after six weeks.

We bumped it up to three shillings for the retired public school teacher, and he still didn't last more than two months."

She ticked them off on her fingers. "Between the three of them, never mind the fees and wasted effort, what really cost us was the delay. Tom's entrance exams won't wait."

Mrs. Dawn turned to Richard, her gaze serious.

"Mr. Williams, today you spent five minutes teaching Tom something he couldn't memorize in three months.

If you can truly stick it out and get his Latin up to the passing mark for the entrance exams..."

She looked at Charlotte.

Charlotte's expression remained neutral, but she didn't object.

"Three shillings an hour it is," Mrs. Dawn decided. "Today's trial lesson will count as official, so we'll settle the payment for it together."

She pulled a small ledger from her pocket, opened it, and jotted down a note.

"Furthermore, if Tom's Latin grades at school show significant improvement over the next six months, we'll provide a bonus. The exact amount will depend on his report card."

"We'll also provide lunch for every lesson. You can eat here before you leave. As for transportation..."

She paused. "How far is Highfield Road from where you live?"

"About a thirty-minute walk."

"Then I'll have the coachman drive you. He can pick you up before class and drop you off after lunch."

Richard quickly ran the numbers.

With the Dawn family providing lunch, he would save money on two meals a week. Being picked up and dropped off would also save him a fair bit of time.

He'd be looking at a steady income of around two and a half pounds a month, not even counting the promised bonus.

"Can I start next Saturday?"

"Of course."

Charlotte stood and looked at her brother.

"Tom, what do you say to Mr. Williams?"

"Goodbye, Mr. Williams," Tom said politely, already fishing his slingshot back out of his pocket.

He raised it toward the window, muttering under his breath. "Nominative... direct shot..."

Mrs. Dawn's eye twitched, but she refrained from scolding him.

It was the first time her son had actively recited the declension table in front of a tutor. Even if his manners were lacking, it was ten thousand times better than spacing out.

Mrs. Dawn had a maid fetch three shillings—the fee for today's trial hour, exact to the penny.

The three gleaming silver shillings were handed over in a small envelope. Mrs. Dawn had neatly written "Mr. Williams's Lesson Fee" across the front.

The gesture improved Richard's impression of the Dawn family even more.

It wasn't a handout meant to brush off a beggar. They paid promptly, kept clear accounts, and treated their tutor like a professional.

As Charlotte walked him out, she paused on the foyer steps.

"Mr. Williams."

"Yes?"

She rested her hand on the doorframe.

"My brother's issue is something his previous tutors noticed as well.

He isn't stupid—you could even say he's quite smart—but he simply cannot keep his attention on his lessons."