Whether the will to get well was the cause or the effect of the improvement I cannot state, but I suddenly improved wonderfully, and three days before the examination I scarcely coughed at all, though I was weak and felt barely able to walk.
The evening before the examination I started with Mr Rouse for Woolwich, and we took up our quarters at the King’s Arms Hotel. There were several other candidates staying in the house, who, I understood, were going up for the examination on the morrow.
Previous to going to bed Mr Rouse sat chatting with me in our sitting-room, giving me hints about the examination. “You must remember,” he said, “that your success or failure does not depend on what you have done or what you have learnt either with me or at Hostler’s, but it depends solely on what you write on your paper to-morrow. I have known boys fail at examinations merely on account of carelessness at the examination. They knew a problem well, but they wrote so carelessly, and described so loosely, that the examiner concluded they knew nothing about the matter. After you have finished a paper, read over slowly and patiently what you have written, and you will almost always find you have made some absurdly simple mistake. I have known men go to an examination as it is said a Dutchman did at a ditch. He ran a mile to get up his speed, and was then so done that, instead of jumping over, he jumped into the ditch. Concentrate all your power on the work in hand; take the easiest questions first, and when you find a difficulty you can’t get over, go on to another question; then you will sometimes find, on going back, that you can at once get over what before defeated you. Above all things, keep quite calm and thoughtful, and do not lose your head or get into a funk.”
These and other similar precepts Mr Rouse gave me, as modern youths would style them, as “straight tips,” and I thought over them before I went to sleep, and impressed them on my memory.
I woke early on the following morning, and though I tried hard to avoid feeling anxious, yet I could not forget that the whole of my future career hinged on what I did on that and the following days of examination. If I failed, a slur would be on me for life, though perhaps undeserved. If I succeeded, I believed I should accomplish what many considered, if not impossible, at least improbable.
After an early breakfast I walked with Mr Rouse towards the Academy, where the examination was to be held, and on the common was joined by five of my old schoolfellows from Hostler’s.
“What, Shepard!” said one of them, “you don’t mean to say you are going to try the examination? Why, I heard you’d given it up!”
“Oh, I’m going to try, just for the fun of the thing,” I replied.
“If I’d been you I’d have cut the affair, for it’s far better to withdraw than to have the discredit of being spun.”
“How Hostler will laugh when he hears of your coming up!” said another of my old schoolfellows.