“O Lord, let me get a scholarship and come to Adams’s,” he said very fervently.
He thought for a moment, but really there seemed to be nothing else that his heart desired.
“Amen,” he said, and, jumping into bed again, fell asleep.
CHAPTER VI
It was the morning of the day before Helmsworth broke up; examinations were over, lists had been read out, and places and removes assigned to those who would reassemble in September, and just now the whole school was employed in the joyful task of packing play-boxes. This was not an affair that usually demanded anxious consideration: it consisted in shying your books into your box and shaking it until the lid consented to close or burst in the attempt. But David on this particular occasion was not sure that it was very joyful, and, as an outward and visible sign of his doubts, he was actually packing his books, fitting them in one with another, that is to say, instead of making salad. Glorious things had happened, and a dazzling future was no doubt to follow, but he was dimly aware that a chapter in life was closing, which in spite of its drawbacks and terrors and annoyances had been jolly. He had been happy, he was aware, without knowing it, and whatever the future held it would not hold this again. No such scruples afflicted Ferrers, who was emptying his locker into his play-box in the manner of a cheerful cataract, holding up for competition anything he did not want.
“Old Testament Maclear,” he said. “Quis for an old Testament Maclear? List of kings of Israel and Judah in it, with lots of noughts and crosses over it. Lord, I’d like to make a parcel of it and send it to Dubs without any stamps on.”
David was considering the question of a catapult. In the famous visit to Marchester he had discovered that catapults were scuggy inventions, but he had at present been unable to bring himself to part with this one, so great was its calibre. The stag-beetles he had given to Ferrers Minor the day after his return, and their new owner had sat down on them with total loss of life, a few hours subsequently. And now he hardened himself again.
“Quis for a catapult?” he said heroically, and a chorus of “Ego” answered him. He threw it to Stone, who had clearly been first with his “Ego.”
“Rotten things, catapults,” he said, to strengthen himself, “only scugs use them at Marchester.”