"Oh, I know he could, but he wouldn't over a thing like that. Damn it all, the man is a gentleman."
"Of course he is, but all the same he is a blood, and it pays to keep on good terms with them."
"Oh, I don't know; it's risky—and well, I think the whole idea is damned silly nonsense."
Jeffries looked at him rather curiously.
"Yes," he said, "I suppose that is how the small boy always looks at it."
It was only for an hour or so, however, that Gordon let this affair worry him. The holidays were only forty-eight hours off and he was longing to hear the results of the exams., and to know whether he had a prize.
Prize-giving was always held at five o'clock on the last Monday. And the afternoon dragged by very slowly. Mansell assumed a cheerful indifference. He thought his motor bike fairly certain. Rumour had it there were going to be at least twelve promotions into the Lower Fifth. Jeffries and Lovelace had also nothing to worry about; there was little doubt as to their positions. Hunter specialised in chemistry, and had done no examination papers. But for Gordon the suspense was intolerable. He could find nothing to do; he climbed up the Abbey tower, and wrote his name on the big hand of the clock; he roped up his playbox, tipped the school porter; and still there was an hour and a half to put in. Disconsolately he wandered down town. He strolled into Gisson's, the school book-seller's: it contained nothing but the Home University Library series and numerous Everymans. It was just like his first day over again. But at last five o'clock came, and he sat with his four friends at the back of the big schoolroom. He grew more and more tired of hearing the lists of the Second and Third Forms read out. What interest did he take in the doings of Pappenheim and Guttridge tertius? IV. A was reached at length. The list was read from the bottom.
Not placed—Hunter.
Slowly the names were read out; the single figures were now reached:
Mansell—term's work, eighteen. Exams., one. Combined order, four.