“Which was that, sir?”
“The Aeschylus paper, in which you were first, Mr Kennedy; you did it remarkably accurately. If you had seen the paper, you could hardly have done it better.”
“Indeed! Would you give me a library order, sir?” said Kennedy, rising abruptly, to change the subject. Mr Grayson was offended at this sudden change of subject, and, silently writing the order, bade Kennedy a cold “good morning.” All that Kennedy hoped was that he would not tell others as well as himself, the odious fact of his success.
The thought damped his spirits, but he shook it off. The novelty of returning as a junior soph, the pleasure of meeting the familiar faces once more, the consciousness of that bright change of existence, which, during the past vacation, had bound the golden thread of Violet’s destiny with his, filled him with inward exultation. And then there was real delight in the warmth with which he was greeted by all alike.
He found himself, very unexpectedly, a hero in the general estimation. The romantic adventure on the Schilthorn had been rumoured about among the numerous English visitors to the Valley of Lauterbrunnen, until it had reached the editor of a local paper, and so had flowed through Galignani into the general stream of the English journals. True, the names had been suppressed, but all the Saint Werner’s men knew who was intended by “Mr K dash y,” and as he entered the hall there was a murmur of applause.
He was greeted on all sides with eager questions.
“I say, Mr K dash y,” said one, “did the fellow whom you shot die of his wound?”
“It was rather a chouse to shoot a cretin, though,” said another, in chaff.
“I didn’t shoot him,” said Kennedy.
“No, you very leerily managed to make the other fellow shoot him. Preserve me from my friends, must have been his secret reflections.”