He pronounced his Latin in the new-old way, with Continental vowels. The effect of this on an Englishman’s lips is always more or less pedantic, and in his case it was intolerable.
‘And when,’ he exclaimed, dismissing the melancholy thought, ‘do you present yourself for ordination?’
It was his habit to pay slight attention to the words of anyone but himself, and Peak’s careless answer merely led him to talk on wide subjects with renewal of energy. One might have suspected that he had made a list of uncommon words wherewith to adorn his discourse, for certain of these frequently recurred. ‘Nullifidian’, ‘morbific’, ‘renascent’, were among his favourites. Once or twice he spoke of ‘psychogenesis’, with an emphatic enunciation which seemed to invite respectful wonder. In using Latin words w
