“Bah!” shouted Dr. Brownjohn. “Impudent nonsense, you young sloth. Why didn’t you get your Certificate?”
“I failed in Arithmetic, sir.”
“You’ll fail in your whole life, boy,” prophesied Dr. Brownjohn in bull-deep accents of reproach. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”
“No, sir,” said Michael. “I don’t think I am, because I worked jolly hard.”
“Worked, you abominable little loafer? You’ve never worked in your life. You could be the finest scholar in the school, and you’re merely a coruscation of slatternly, slipshod paste. Bah! What do you expect to do when you leave school? Um?”
“I want to go to Oxford.”
“Then get the Balliol Scholarship.”
“I don’t want to be at Balliol,” said Michael.
“Then get the major scholarship at Trinity, Cambridge.”
“I don’t intend to go to Cambridge,” said Michael.