This is so interesting! I like Holmes' enthusiastically detailed account of his scientific experiments with Ajua and Kofi and their friends, and his account of his afternoon with Agnes and Mrs. Hudson in the kitchen. I absolutely share the theory that Holmes particularly likes working with adolescents: curious, energetic, interested and interesting.

I confess (!) that I was also surprised by the Latin. I find it easy to believe that, despite his bohemian disposition, he would have learned the general confession of Cranmer's prayer book from chapel at school and university. But the Latin! a family history of Catholicism? art in the blood? merely, as you suggest, a temperamental inclination to drama? In any case, a curious detail to tease the brain.