I was quite satisfied, and was glad to find that I had not overrated what I had done at the examination. I little suspected then that my success was likely to place me in a very unpleasant position, which was, perhaps, due in a measure to another cause which I must here relate.
It happened that, during the half-year, I was one morning in study when a cadet in the first row, who used to be generally up to some trick, called my name during the time the corporal on duty was absent. I looked up from my drawing and immediately a ball of bread, made out of the crumb of a roll, was thrown at me. I caught the ball and instantly threw it back, but just as the ball was leaving my hand the door opened and the Inspector appeared. The cadet at whom I had thrown the ball failed to catch it, and the ball struck the door within a foot of the Inspector’s head.
I was immediately placed in arrest, and the next day was taken before the Governor charged with throwing a ball at the Inspector. Luckily the cadet who had thrown the ball to me was available as evidence, and our defence was that we had used the bread to clean our drawings, and had thrown it to one another instead of carrying it from one part of the class-room to another. This defence cleared me in the Governor’s mind from the charge of throwing at the Inspector, but I got seven days’ arrest for creating a disturbance in academy.
The fact of my having suddenly come out as a good mathematician, when hitherto I had shown only as a muff, was a surprise to every one, even to the master himself; but I was completely taken aback when I was sent for to the Inspector’s office, and told that there was a strong suspicion against me of having fudged at my examination.
I indignantly denied the charge, and said that in consequence of its being my probationary examination I had worked very hard to pass, and had quite expected to get a good decimal.
“We have already ascertained,” said the Inspector, “that you have not worked in your room, you rarely studied out of academy, and the examiner found you asleep during examination, so that it seems impossible you could by fair means obtain .8, which you have done.”
“It is very hard on me,” I replied, “to be accused of fudging, when I give you my word of honour I have not fudged, merely because I have done well.”
“We will give you the benefit of the doubt, Mr Shepard,” said the Inspector, with anything but a pleasant manner, and I left his office feeling that in his own mind he was confirmed I had fudged—the how or the means by which I had done so alone preventing him from proceeding with his charge.
Among the cadets of my class I was considered a martyr, for they accounted for my success by attributing it to “luck in the questions.” To me, however, the result was most important. First, it rendered my position at the Academy secure; and, secondly, it showed me that the system I had adopted for gaining a knowledge of mathematics and geometry was a sound one, and that I had a sort of key for the cultivation of the intellect. I now looked forward to my Academy career with hope and pleasure, and a feeling of ambition came upon me which is, perhaps, one of the greatest incentives to work that can be given to a young man.
When I joined the Academy I was a boy and felt like a boy, but the rough handling that I had gone through, and the experience I had gained during the eighteen months I had been at the Academy, had aged me beyond my years. I had also grown considerably, and looked older than I was, several persons putting me down as eighteen or nineteen years old, whereas I was not much past seventeen.