“Why was our Lord taken before the high priest first, and not before Pilate?”
“Because Peter had cut off his servant’s ear.”
“Who was Malchus?”
“He was the High priest’s servant whose ear Peter cut off, and supposed to be the author of a treatise on population.”
Frank contributed one to the stock of blunders. Given the Greek words and asked to explain the context of “The thorns sprang up and choked it,” he translated them, “The thieves sprang up and choked him;” and proceeded to give an elaborate description of the parable of the Good Samaritan. He did not, however, end in the legendary manner: “He took out two pence and gave them to the host, saying, ‘Whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again I will repay thee.’ This he said, well knowing he should see his face no more.”
He answered the rest of the paper, as he thought, fairly; and, from the short vivâ voce he had a few days later, inferred that the written part of his work was better than he imagined; and two hours afterwards received in exchange for the customary shilling the much-coveted piece of blue paper from the patient Parker, clerk of the schools. A few days elapsed, and then he went in for Law. We need not follow him through all the details. As so often happens, he did better than he expected in the subjects he feared most, and worse in those he fancied he should do better. But on the whole he was satisfied with his performance. In vivâ voce he considerably improved his position, and to this he attributed the fact that when the class-list appeared he found himself in the second instead of the third class. A first he had never expected to get; but Edwards learnt from the examiners that he was considered a good second-class man, having amply retrieved in vivâ voce the failure in one of his papers which had threatened to lower him to the third.
CHAPTER X.
GOWN AT LAST.
So now it was all over—all the work and anxiety. The taking of his degree remained, and—Commemoration. It was Thursday when the class-list appeared. The following Sunday was Show Sunday, the semi-official commencement of the festivities. He telegraphed to his father: “Have got a second. You must come up for Commem. I hope to put on my gown on Thursday.” He telegraphed to Rose. He wrote a long letter to his mother by that night’s post, begging her to bring one of his sisters and Rose. He wrote to Rose herself. He was in a whirl of excitement, and to conceal his emotion he ordered an elegant summer suit, which he did not in the least require, at a most obliging tailor’s not a hundred yards from St. Mary’s Church. So obliging was he, in fact, that it is matter of history that when a certain wealthy and aristocratic Irishman, in a flow of unbounded extravagance, ordered him to “send in his whole shop,” the tailor, with undisturbed equanimity, replied, “Certainly, sir! What time would you like it?”