The children have talked so much about your stories , that my father wishes to hear one of them , in order to judge whether they are likely to do any mischief . '' `` Poh , poh , Primrose ! '' exclaimed the student , rather vexed . `` I do n't believe I can tell one of my stories in the presence of grown people . Besides , your father is a classical scholar ; not that I am much afraid of his scholarship , neither , for I doubt not it is as rusty as an old case-knife , by this time . But then he will be sure to quarrel with the admirable nonsense that I put into these stories , out of my own head , and which makes the great charm of the matter for children , like yourself . No man of fifty , who has read the classical myths in his youth , can possibly understand my merit as a re-inventor and improver of them . '' `` All this may be very true , '' said Primrose , `` but come you must ! My father will not open his book , nor will mamma open the piano , till you have given us some of your nonsense , as you very correctly call it . So be a good boy , and come along . '' Whatever he might pretend , the student was rather glad than otherwise , on second thoughts , to catch at the opportunity of proving to Mr. Pringle what an excellent faculty he had in modernizing the myths of ancient times . Until twenty years of age , a young man may , indeed , be rather bashful about showing his poetry and his prose ; but , for all that , he is pretty apt to think that these very productions would place him at the tip-top of literature , if once they could be known . Accordingly , without much more resistance , Eustace suffered Primrose and Periwinkle to drag him into the drawing-room . It was a large handsome apartment , with a semicircular window at one end , in the recess of which stood a marble copy of Greenough 's Angel and Child . On one side of the fireplace there were many shelves of books , gravely but richly bound . The white light of the astrallamp , and the red glow of the bright coal-fire , made the room brilliant and cheerful ; and before the fire , in a deep arm-chair , sat Mr. Pringle , looking just fit to be seated in such a chair , and in such a room . He was a tall and quite a handsome gentleman , with a bald brow ; and was always so nicely dressed , that even Eustace Bright never liked to enter his presence , without at least pausing at the threshold to settle his shirt-collar . But now , as Primrose had hold of one of his hands , and Periwinkle of the other , he was forced to make his appearance with a rough-and-tumble sort of look , as if he had been rolling all day in a snow-bank . And so he had . Mr. Pringle turned towards the student , benignly enough , but in a way that made him feel how uncombed and unbrushed he was , and how uncombed and unbrushed , likewise , were his mind and thoughts .
`` XXXXX , '' said Mr. Pringle , with a smile , `` I find that you are producing a great sensation among the little public of Tanglewood , by the exercise of your gifts of narrative .
Eustace Periwinkle Primrose Pringle case-knife coal-fire day poh re-inventor shirt-collar