He returned to the college fresh, rested and ready for the hardest grind of his life. The Civil Service examinations were only two months away and on these examinations depended his appointment in the Government service, and the fulfillment of his father’s condition. In this it meant far more to him than to any of the others. The field covered was enormous and Scott felt that it was simply a matter of steady grinding to get over as much of the ground as he possibly could. He apportioned his time carefully to the different subjects and prepared to put in thirteen hours a day.
He knew that there would be many questions which would be a mere matter of judgment, and on those he did not waste his time; but there would be many others which would call for facts and those facts he proposed to master.
The weeks passed by monotonously enough. There was no variation, no change from the set routine. The other members of the class were working spasmodically but they had not tied themselves down to such gruelling work.
Johnson astonished Scott by coming to town two weeks before the examination and announcing that he was going to test the value of his experience by taking the examination, and seeing what he could do with it. He followed the lines of Scott’s work pretty carefully and in the hour which they devoted to discussion every evening he managed to collect most of the points that had been unearthed during the day.
At last the day for the great trial arrived. It was to last for two days of seven hours each; two unbroken periods of seven long hours.
They went down to the post office where the ordeal was to take place. “I feel like a sausage,” Johnson said. “I’m stuffed so tight that I can’t shut my eyes comfortably.”
“I feel worse than that,” Scott answered. “I feel as though I had been stuffed so tight that I had burst somewhere and all the stuffing was running out. If I don’t get hold of those questions pretty quick I’ll forget my name.”
“I’ve already forgotten my name,” Johnson said, “but I think it is Dennis.”
They were quickly seated in the great silent room with eight others, all in a great state of nervous excitement. At the first stroke of nine the first set of papers was handed out and they were off with a rush.
Scott never had a very clear idea of those two days except that he wrote on and on incessantly and was not in the least rattled when he had once begun to write.