The Doctor rose deliberately upon his throne-like place at the end of
the theatre, coughed sonorously, settled his plump chin in his very
stiff white cravat, and then gazed frowningly through his spectacles at
the assembled pupils.
There was silence for quite a couple of minutes, and every boy present
felt that the Doctor was singling him out and was about to speak to him
about the committal of some fault, while internally he asked himself
what it could be.
At last the great brain-ruler put an end to the suspense by addressing
his pupils collectively; and every individual but one drew a breath of
relief.
"Young gentlemen," he said, "in my long career of tuition of the boys
who have been entrusted to my charge it has been my great desire to
inculcate honour."
The three masters glanced at each other, making suggestive grimaces as
if questioning what was to come, and at the same time expressing
ignorance.
"Now, I regret very much to have to tell you that this morning I have
been made aware of a most dishonourable act committed by one of my
pupils. I have received by post what I can only term a very degrading
letter, which I am sorry to say I fully believe to have been written by
some one present. Who that is I do not know, and I tell you all that I
would rather not know until the culprit allows his better feelings to
obtain the mastery, and comes to me privately and says, `Dr Bewley, I
was guilty of that act of folly; but now I bitterly repent, and am here
humbly to ask your forgiveness and at the same time that of my
fellow-pupil whom I have maligned.' Now, young gentlemen, it gives me
pain to address you all for one boy's sin, and I have only this to say,
that you whose consciences are clear can let it pass away like a cloud;
to him who has this black speck upon his conscience I only say I am
waiting; come to me when the examination is done.--Mr Morris, it is ten
minutes past ten. At one o'clock your examination is over, and the
studies are at an end for the day.--Now, my dear boys, I wish you all
success, and I trust that you will show Mr Morris that his mathematical
efforts on your behalf have not been in vain."
There was an end to the painful silence half a minute later, as the
Doctor closed the door after him, not loudly, but it seemed to echo
among the great beams of the building, while it was long before his
slow, heavy step died away upon the gravel path outside.
"Now, young gentlemen," said Morris sharply, "our Principal's address is
not to interfere with my examination. You have your papers. Pro--"
There was a pause.
"--Ceed!" shouted Mr Morris.
There was the scratching of pens upon papers, but upon very few; most of
the boys taking their pens and putting them down again, to rest their
elbows on the desks and their chins upon their thumbs, as they fixed
their eyes upon the column-like pile of questions printed quite close to
the left side of the sheets of foolscap, while the three masters at the
two ends and in the middle of the theatre seated themselves, book in
hand, ready to hold up high before their faces so that they could
conveniently peer over the top and make certain that there were not any
more culprits than one within reach of their piercing eyes.
Mr Morris, to pass his three hours gently and pleasantly, opened a very
old copy, by Blankborough, upon logarithms; Monsieur Brohanne had armed
himself with a heavy tome of _La Grande Encyclopedie_, with a bookmark
therein at the page dealing with the ancient _langue d'oc_; while Mr
Rampson, also linguistical, opened a sickly-looking vellum volume,
horribly mildewy and stained, and made as if to read a very brown page
of Greek whose characters looked like so many tiny creases and
shrinkings in a piece of dry skin.
Only one boy spoke, and that was Glyn Severn, and he to himself; but at
the same time he had caught Singh's eye as he sat some distance from
him, and, placing his sheet of foolscap by his side, he raised his
blotting-pad so that his companion could see a great blotch of ink
thereon which seemed as if it had been roughly made by a brush that had
been dipped in ink.
This done, he laid the pad back in its place, twisted the fold towards
him, and taking a bright, new two-bladed knife that had been purchased
with the proceeds of the Colonel's cheque, he opened the large blade and
carefully passed it along the fold, setting free one half-sheet of the
absorbent paper. This he folded and put in his pocket; but the ink had
gone through to the next half-sheet, and this he also separated,
treating it as he did the first. This left two half-sheets, with the
possibility of their slipping about and away from the rest. So, after
pocketing his knife, he opened the remainder where they were folded, and
refolded the pad inside out, so as to leave the two cut half-sheets in
the middle.
"That nasty nuisance of a cat!" he muttered to himself. "It must have
come along smelling after poor little Burton's white mice, and smudged
my paper like this. Ah," he continued, to himself, "I have promised the
poor little chap that I'll lick Master Slegge, and--Hullo! What's this?
What does old Morris mean by giving me half-used paper, and the other
fellows new?"
His hands had been busy redoubling and smoothing the fold over the now
prisoned half-sheets, and he was about to hold up his hand as a sign to
the nearest master that he wanted to speak; but he let it fall again
upon the desk, and sat gazing down at some indistinctly seen lines upon
the blotting-paper, which looked as if a letter had been inserted wet
within the pad and hastily blotted.
He could barely read a word, but somehow his curiosity was aroused, and
he turned the leaf over, to find that the newly written letter had been
placed in contact with the other side, the lines looking far blacker
there, but seen like a page of printing type the reverse way on, so that
he could not read a word.
Glyn closed the leaf again and tried to read once more, but with very
little success; but for some reason or another his interest was more
deeply excited, and he doubled two more leaves over so as to hide the
writing, drew forward the foolscap paper to place it once more on the
blotting-pad, and then began to read hard at the first section, trying
the while to forget all about the freshly blotted letter, but in vain.
For two questions very different from Mr Morris's kept on appealing to
him, neither of them algebraic or dealing with Euclid. One was, "How
came that letter to be blotted on my pad?" and, "Who was it that wrote
it?"
There was no answer; but the boy felt that he knew enough about one of
Mr Morris's questions to begin to write the answer, and over this he
had been busy for about ten minutes when another question flashed across
his brain: "Was this the letter of which the Doctor spoke?"