“Oh, I know that,” he said.
“Will you make an exchange, then?”
“No. Besides, it would be all the same for me if I did,” he contrived to
whisper just as the professor called us up to the blackboard. “I don’t
feel up to anything to-day.”
“Then everything is lost!” I thought to myself. Instead of the brilliant
result which I had anticipated I should be for ever covered with
shame--more so even than Ikonin! Suddenly, under the very eyes of the
professor, Ikonin turned to me, snatched my ticket out of my hands, and
handed me his own. I looked at his ticket. It was Newton’s Binomial!
The professor was a youngish man, with a pleasant, clever expression of
face--an effect chiefly due to the prominence of the lower part of his
forehead.
“What? Are you exchanging tickets, gentlemen?” he said.
“No. He only gave me his to look at, professor,” answered Ikonin--and,
sure enough, the word “professor” was the last word that he uttered
there. Once again, he stepped backwards towards me from the table, once
again he looked at each of the professors in turn and then at myself,
once again he smiled faintly, and once again he shrugged his shoulders
as much as to say, “It is no use, my good sirs.” Then he returned to the
desks. Subsequently, I learnt that this was the third year he had vainly
attempted to matriculate.
I answered my question well, for I had just read it up; and the
professor, kindly informing me that I had done even better than was
required, placed me fifth.