The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's: A School Story

  CHAPTER FIVE.

  SHAKING DOWN TO WORK.

  "Master Greenfield, junior, is to go to the head master's study athalf-past nine," called out Mr Roach, the school porter, putting hishead into the dormitory, at seven o'clock next morning.

  Stephen had been up an hour, making fearful and wonderful shots ofanswers to his awful questions, half of which he had already ticked offas done for better or worse. "If I write _something_ down to each,"thought he to himself, "I might happen to get one thing right; it'll bebetter than putting down no answer at all."

  "Half-past nine!" said he to Paul, on hearing this announcement; "_ten_was the time I was told."

  "Who told you?"

  "The gentleman who gave me my paper."

  "What paper? you don't have papers. It's _viva voce_."

  "I've got a paper, anyhow," said Stephen, "and a precious hard one, too,and I've only half done it."

  "Well, you'll have to go at half-past nine, or you'll catch it," saidPaul. "I say, there's Loman calling you."

  Stephen, who, since the indignation meeting last night, had felt himselfgrow very rebellious against the monitors, did not choose to hear thecall in question, and tried his hardest to make another shot at hispaper. But he could not keep deaf when Loman himself opened the door,and pulling his ear inquired what he meant by not coming when he wastold? The new boy then had to submit, and sulkily followed his lord tohis study, there to toast some bread at a smoky fire, and look for abouthalf an hour for a stud that Loman said had rolled under the chest ofdrawers, but which really had fallen into one of that gentleman's boots.

  By the time these labours were over, and Stephen had secured a mouthfulof breakfast in his brother's study, it was time to go down to prayers;and after prayers he had but just time to wonder what excuse he shouldmake for only answering half his questions, when the clock pointed tothe half-hour, and he had to scuttle off as hard as he could to theDoctor's study.

  Dr Senior was a tall, bald man, with small, sharp eyes, and with aface as solemn as an owl's. He looked up as Stephen entered.

  "Come in, my man. Let me see; Greenfield? Oh, yes. You got here onTuesday. How old are you?"

  "Nearly eleven, sir," said Stephen, with the paper burning in hispocket.

  "Just so; and I dare say your brother has shown you over the school, andhelped to make you feel at home. Now suppose we just run through whatyou have learned at home."

  Now was the time. With a sigh as deep as the pocket from which hepulled it, Stephen produced that miserable paper.

  "I'm very sorry, sir," he began, "I've not had time--"

  "Tut, tut!" said the Doctor; "put that away, and let us get on."

  Stephen stared. "It's the paper you gave me!" he said.

  The Doctor frowned. "I hope you are not a silly boy," he said, rathercrossly.

  "I'm afraid they are all wrong," said Stephen; "the questions were--were--rather hard."

  "What questions?" exclaimed the Doctor, a trifle impatient, and a triflepuzzled.

  "These you sent me," said Stephen, humbly handing in the paper.

  "Hum! some mistake; let's see, perhaps Jellicott--ah!" and he put on hisglasses and unfolded the paper.

  "Question 1. Grammar!" and then a cloud of amazement fell over theDoctor's face. He looked sharply out from under his spectacles atStephen, who stood anxiously and nervously before him. Then he glancedagain at the paper, and his mouth twitched now and then as he read thestring of questions, and the boy's desperate attempts to answer them.

  "Humph!" he said, when the operation was over, "I'm afraid, Greenfield,you are not a very clever boy--"

  "I know I'm not, sir," said Stephen, quite relieved that the Doctor didnot at once order him to quit Saint Dominic's.

  "Or you would have seen that this paper was a practical joke." Then itburst all of a sudden on Stephen. And all this about "Mr Finis", "Oh,ah," and the rest of it had been a cruel hoax, and no more!

  "Come, now, let us waste no more time. I'm not surprised," said theDoctor, suppressing a smile by a very hard twitch; "I'm not surprisedyou found these questions hard. How far have you got in arithmetic?"

  And then the Doctor launched Stephen into a _viva voce_ examination, inwhich that young prodigy of learning acquitted himself far morefavourably than could have been imagined, and at the end of which heheard that he would be placed in the fourth junior class, where it wouldbe his duty to strain every nerve to advance, and make the best use ofhis time at Saint Dominic's. Then the Doctor rang his bell.

  "Tell Mr Rastle kindly to step here," said he to the porter.

  Mr Rastle appeared, and to his charge, after solemnly shaking hands andpromising to be a paragon of industry and good conduct, Stephen wasconsigned by the head master.

  "By the way," said the Doctor, as Stephen was leaving, "will you tellthe boy who gave you this paper I wish to see him?"

  Stephen, who had been too much elated by the result of the realexamination to recollect for the moment the trickery of the sham one,now blushed very red as he remembered what a goose he had been, andundertook to obey the Doctor's order. And this it was very easy to do.For as he opened the study-door he saw Pembury just outside, leaningagainst the wall with his eyes on the clock as it struck ten.

  As he caught sight of Stephen emerging from the head master's study, hiscountenance fell, and he said eagerly and half-anxiously, "Didn't I tellyou ten o'clock, Greenfield?"

  "Yes, but the Doctor said half-past nine. And you are a cad to make afool of me," added Stephen, rising with indignation, "and--and--and--"and here he choked.

  "Calm yourself, my young friend," said Pembury. "It's such a hard thingto make a fool of you that, you know, and--and--and--!"

  "I shall not speak to you," stammered Stephen.

  "Oh, don't apologise," laughed Pembury. "Perhaps it would comfort youto kick me. Please choose my right leg, as the other is off the ground,eh?"

  "The Doctor wants to speak to you, he says," said Stephen.

  Pembury's face fell again. "Do you mean to say he saw the paper, andyou told him?" he said, angrily.

  "I showed him the paper, because I thought he had sent it; but I didn'ttell him who gave it to me."

  "Then why does he want me?"

  "He wants the boy who gave me the paper, that's all he said," answeredStephen, walking off sulkily to his quarters, and leaving Anthony toreceive the rebukes of Dr Senior, and make his apologies for his evildeeds as best he could.

  The offence after all was not a very terrible one, and Pembury got offwith a mild reprimand on the evils of practical joking, at the end ofwhich he found himself in his usual amiable frame of mind, andharbouring no malice against his innocent victim.

  "Greenfield," said he, when shortly afterwards he met Oliver, "I oweyour young brother an apology."

  "What on earth for?"

  "I set him an examination paper to answer, which I'm afraid caused himsome labour. Never mind, it was all for the best."

  "What, did that paper he was groaning over come from you? What a shame,Tony, to take advantage of a little beggar like him!"

  "I'm awfully sorry, tell him; but I say, Greenfield, it'll make asplendid paragraph for the _Dominican_. By the way, are you going tolet me have that poem you promised on the Guinea-pigs?"

  "I can't get on with it at all," said Oliver. "I'm stuck for a rhyme inthe second line."

  "Oh, stick down anything. How does it begin?"

  "`Oh, dwellers in the land of dim perpetual,'"

  began Oliver.

  "Very good; let's see; how would this do?--

  "`I hate the day when first I met you all, And this I undertake to bet you all, One day I'll into trouble get you all, And down the playground steps upset you all, And with a garden hose I'll wet you all, And then--'"

  "Oh, look here," said Oliver, "that'll do. You may as well finish thething right out at that rate."

  "Not at all, my dear fellow. It was just a sudden inspir
ation, youknow. Don't mention it, and you may like to get off that rhyme intoanother. But I say, Greenfield, we shall have a stunning paper for thefirst one. Tom Senior has written no end of a report of the lastmeeting of the Sixth Form Debating Society, quite in the parliamentarystyle; and Bullinger is writing a history of Saint Dominic's, `gatheredfrom the earliest sources,' as he says, in which he's taking off most ofthe Sixth. Simon is writing a love-ballad, which is sure to be fun; andRicketts is writing a review of Liddell and Scott's _Lexicon_; andWraysford is engaged on `The Diary of the Sixth Form Mouse.'"

  "Good!" said Oliver, "and what are _you_ writing?"

  "Oh, the leading article, you know, and the personal notes, and `Squeaksfrom Guineapigland and Tadpoleopolis,' and some of the advertisements.Come up to my study, you and Wray, this evening after prayers, I say,and we'll go through it."

  And off hobbled the editor of the _Dominican_, leaving Oliver greatlyimpressed with his literary talents, especially in the matter of findingrhymes for "perpetual."

  By the time he and Wraysford went in the evening to read over what hadbeen sent in, the poem on the Guinea-pigs was complete.

  They found Pembury busy over a huge sheet of paper, the size of histable.

  "What on earth have you got there?" cried Wraysford.

  "The _Dominican_, to be sure," said Anthony, gravely.

  "Nonsense! you are not going to get it out in that shape?"

  "I am, though. Look here, you fellows," said Anthony, "I'll show youthe dodge of the thing. The different articles will either be copied orpasted into this big sheet. You see each of these columns is just thewidth of a sheet of school paper. Well, here's a margin all round--doyou twig?--so that when the whole thing's made up it'll be ready forframing."

  "Framing!" exclaimed Greenfield and his friend.

  "To be sure. I'm getting a big frame, with glass, made for it, with thetitle of the paper in big letters painted on the wood. So the way weshall publish it will be to hang it outside our class-room, and thenevery one can come and read it who likes--much better than passing itround to one fellow at a time."

  "Upon my word, Tony, it's a capital notion," exclaimed Wraysford,clapping the lame boy on the back; "it does you credit, my boy."

  "Don't mention it," said Tony; "and don't whack me like that again, orI'll refuse to insert your `Diary of the Sixth Form Mouse.'"

  "But, I say," said Greenfield, "are you sure they'll allow it to hangout there? It may get knocked about."

  "I dare say we may have a row with the monitors about it; but we mustsquare them somehow. We shall have to keep a fag posted beside it,though, to protect it."

  "And to say `Move on!' like the policemen," added Wraysford. "Well,it's evident you don't want any help, Tony, so I'll go."

  "Good-bye; don't ask me to your study for supper, please."

  "I'm awfully sorry, I promised Bullinger. I know he has a dozensausages in his cupboard. Come along there. Are you coming,Greenfield?"

  And the worthy friends separated for a season.

  Meanwhile, Stephen had made his _debut_ in the Fourth Junior. He wasput to sit at the bottom desk of the class, which happened to be next tothe desk owned by Master Bramble, the inky-headed blanket-snatcher.This young gentleman, bearing in mind his double humiliation, seemed byno means gratified to find who his new neighbour was.

  "Horrid young blub-baby!" was his affectionate greeting, "I don't wantyou next to me."

  "I can't help it," said Stephen. "I was put here."

  "Oh, yes, because you're such an ignorant young sneak; that's why."

  "I suppose that's why you were at the bottom before I came--oh!"

  The last exclamation was uttered aloud, being evoked by a dig from theamiable Master Bramble's inky pen into Stephen's leg.

  "Who was that?" said Mr Rastle, looking up from his desk.

  "Now then," whispered Bramble, "sneak away--tell tales, and get me intoa row--I'll pay you!"

  Stephen, feeling himself called upon, stood up.

  "It was me," he said.

  "It was I, would be better grammar," said Mr Rastle, quietly.

  Mr Rastle was a ruddy young man, with a very good-humoured face, and asly smile constantly playing at the corners of his mouth. He no doubtguessed the cause of the disturbance, for he asked, "Was any onepinching you?"

  "Go it," growled Bramble, in a savage whisper. "Say it was me, yousneak."

  Stephen said, No, no one had pinched him; but finished up his sentencewith another "Oh!" as the gentle Bramble gave him a sharp side-kick onthe ankle as he stood.

  Mr Rastle's face darkened as he perceived this last piece of by-play.

  "Bramble," said he, "oblige me by standing on the form for half an hour.I should be sorry to think you were as objectionable as your nameimplies. Sit down, Greenfield."

  And then the class resumed, with Master Bramble perched like a statue ofthe sulky deity on his form, muttering threats against Greenfield allthe while, and the most scathing denunciations against all who might beeven remotely connected with big brothers, and mammies, and blub-babies.

  Stephen, who was beginning to feel himself much more at home at SaintDominic's, betrayed no visible terror at these menaces, and only oncetook any notice of his exalted enemy, when the latter attempted not onlyto stand on the form, but upon a tail of Stephen's jacket, and a bit ofthe flesh of his leg at the same time. Then he gave the offending foota knock with his fist and an admonitory push.

  "Please, sir," squeaked the lordly Bramble, "Greenfield junior is tryingto knock me over."

  "I was not," shouted Stephen; "he was squashing me with his foot, and Imoved it away."

  "Really, Bramble," said Mr Rastle, "you are either very unfortunate orvery badly behaved. Come and stand on this empty form beside my desk.There will be no danger here of `squashing' any one's leg or of beingknocked over. Come at once."

  So Mr Bramble took no advantage by his last motion, and served the restof his term of penal servitude, in the face of the entire class, underthe immediate eye of Mr Rastle.

  Directly class was over, Stephen had to go and wait upon Loman for aparticular purpose, which the reader must hear of in due time.