His mother smiled. "You used to complain that your other master was so particular that you couldn't wink without the teacher hearing."
"Yes. I thought of that to-day when I was trying to do a sum. Why, it was as easy as pie—the sum I mean; but the buzz, buzz, chatter, chatter, that went on all round, sent my wits woolgathering, and I actually took it up wrong; though a Fourth Standard boy would have got it right in the other school."
"You are hard to please, my boy, I am afraid," said his mother. "At the other school you were always complaining that they were so strict during class time that you could not speak a word, and now this school—"
"Mother, did you see it when you went to speak to the master?" interrupted Tom.
"No, my boy. A half-holiday had been given that day, and so I went to Mr. Murray's house."
"Well, the next time you go out, just go round that way, and stand by the window for five minutes, and you'll know then that it's no good trying to learn in such a Bedlam as that is."
"It is a noisy school, mother," said Elsie, who had come to say that dinner was ready.
"Perhaps it is; but Tom used to grumble before that the other school was so quiet," said Mrs. Winn.
"That was because I did not know what a noisy one was like. I didn't know when I was well off, Elsie," he added.
"I wonder whether they have scholarships here," said his sister, who had not given up the hope that her brother might yet distinguish himself in this way.