He rustled out again, leaving uneasiness behind him. It had been rather sport to see Maddox’s crib taken from him, but behind that somewhat superficial pleasure there was a vague idea that dangerous things were getting into dangerous hands. Maddox had been bidden to supply the shorthand notes of the prepared translation, which would reveal the parallelisms between Mr. Bohn’s renderings and that of the Remove A. It would be a dreadful thing if the Head, in an abstracted moment, consulted Mr. Bohn also. Added to that there was the fact that the Head was going to look over the unseen work, and would no doubt be struck by the amazing contrast between that and the prepared lesson. It was almost too much to expect that he would credit the form with such extraordinary industry and taste as to have prepared their set piece so perfectly, and yet to be so lamentably wanting over an unseen. Such, at least, was the private meditation of most of Remove A, who wished severally and collectively that they had not been so brilliant over the first part of the lesson.
Breakfast and desultory confabulation when the form assembled again for the next lesson had not tended to make things more comfortable. But there was nothing whatever to be suspicious about as to the manner in which those ill-omened decrees of fate had unfolded themselves. Mr. Tovey had happened to have influenza, the Head had happened to tell Maddox to take his place, and Maddox had happened to set them an unseen and to take shorthand notes of their previous translation, and the Head had happened to come in to see how Maddox was getting on, and had taken for his own delectation a crib, shorthand notes made manifest, and those dreadful attempts at an unseen. All this was hurriedly debated after Remove A assembled for second school, awaiting the arrival of Maddox, who was a little late, and, so it was sarcastically said, was probably mugging up the Thucydides lesson in another crib. Then the uneasiness increased into dismay, for the door opened, and there appeared, not Maddox at all, but the Head himself. He had a packet of papers in his hand, which were rightly and instantly conjectured to be the Virgil unseen of the hour before.
Dr. Hamilton did everything rather quietly and slowly, and was distinguished for a politeness of manner that on occasion became terrible. He had never been, as far as the school was aware, notable for athletic prowess; but, in spite of this defect, he was always a keen observer of cricket and football matches, and was certainly intelligent about these matters, so that his heart was felt to be in the right place. It was quite certain also that his head was in the right place, for he had been the senior classic and Chancellor’s medallist at Cambridge, a fact which was viewed in the light of a strong testimonial in favour of the dead languages. But, quite apart from any of his accomplishments was the cause of the awed respect in which he was held, and, though the Sixth themselves could not have told you why he was so impressive a person, the reason, except to boys, was not far to seek. It was the justness and the bigness of him, his character—a thing not definable by those whose characters are not yet formed, but quite clearly appreciable by them. To please the Head was worth effort; his praise was of the nature of a decoration. It may be added that it was quite as well worth an effort to avoid displeasing him.
He went, with his rustling gown gathered up in his arm, straight to the desk that Mr. Tovey was wont to occupy, and for five awful minutes, without the slightest allusion to Thucydides, continued reading from the sheaf of papers he carried with him. He did not look at all pleasant, as occasionally he made a note, or occasionally drew his thick blue pencil across a page. And all the time the hapless Remove A sat in a state of confirmed pessimism.
It was noticed that he had divided his sheaf into two packets. He came to the end of it, and tore up, across and across, the larger packet of the two. The rest numbered perhaps half a dozen sheets. Then he spoke.
“I have never seen a worse set of unseen translations than those which the form showed up to Maddox this morning,” he said. “Some half-dozen are passable, and one, that of Blaize, is good, or nearly so. Blaize!”
“Yes sir,” said Blaize.
“What is your place in the form by the half-term marks?”
“Seventeenth, sir,” said David, from his lowly abode.
The Head glared at him and spoke very advisedly.