"Blessed if I don't think he's going to cane them!"
"Certain qualities Mr. Harold Bolsover has also the right to expect and
demand. Do we find them in these essays before us? Reluctantly I
reply, we do not. But in order that you may judge whether your
head-master is unreasonable, that you of the upper school may estimate
the nature of the efforts upon which I base this adverse criticism, I
propose to read brief extracts from each and from all of them.
"The initial error of the boy Nicol Macmullen appears to be a total
misconception of the theme he was invited to illuminate. He begins his
essay as follows."
The Doctor made a frightful rustling among Mac.'s papers, and everybody
looked at Mac. He had not expected this, and his mouth worked very
rummily, and his head went down between his shoulders, and he showed his
under teeth and stared in a frightfully fixed way at the boot of Smythe,
who sat next to him.