At the local police court, where the subject of this sketch¹ turned up periodically amongst the drunks, he had “James” prefixed to his name for the sake of convenience and as a matter of form previous to his being fined forty shillings (which he never paid) and sentenced to “a month hard” (which he contrived² to make as soft as possible). The local larrikins called him “Grog,” a very appropriate name, all things considered; but to the Geebung Times he was known until the day of his death as “a well-known character named Bogg.” The antipathy³ of the local paper might have been accounted for by the fact that Bogg strayed into the office one day in a muddled⁴ condition during the absence of the staff at lunch and corrected a revise proof of the next week's leader, placing bracketed “query” and “see proof” marks opposite the editor's most flowery periods and quotations⁶, and leaving on the margin⁷ some general advice to the printers to “space better.” He also corrected a Latin quotation⁵ or two, and added a few ideas of his own in good French.  
But no one, with the exception of the editor of the Times, ever dreamed that there was anything out of the common in the shaggy, unkempt head upon which poor Bogg used to “do his little time,” until a young English doctor came to practise at Geebung. One night the doctor and the manager of the local bank and one or two others wandered into the bar of the Diggers' Arms, where Bogg sat in a dark corner mumbling⁸ to himself as usual and spilling half his beer on the table and floor. Presently some drunken utterances⁹ reached the doctor's ear, and he turned round in a surprised manner and looked at Bogg. The drunkard continued to mutter for some time, and then broke out into something like the fag-end of a song. The doctor walked over to the table at which Bogg was sitting, and, seating himself on the far corner, regarded the drunkard attentively¹⁰ for some minutes; but the latter's voice ceased, his head fell slowly on his folded arms, and all became silent except the drip, drip of the overturned beer falling from the table to the form and from the form to the floor.
 
The doctor rose and walked back to his friends with a graver face.
 
“You seem interested in Bogg,” said the bank manager.
 
“Yes,” said the doctor.
 
“What was he mumbling about?”
 
“Oh, that was a passage from Homer.”
 
“What?”
 
The doctor repeated his answer.
 
“Then do you mean to say he understands Greek?”
 
“Yes,” said the doctor, sadly; “he is, or must have been, a classical scholar.”
 
The ma............