From Kenrick Walter learnt, rather to his dismay, that he really would have no place to sit in except the big schoolroom, which he would share with some fifty others, and that he would be placed in a dormitory with at least five or six besides himself.
“Have you been examined yet?” asked Kenrick.
“No; but Dr Lane asked me what books I had read, and he told me that I was to go and take my chance in Mr Paton’s form. What form is that?”
“It’s what we call the Virgil form. Have you ever read Virgil?”
“No; at least only a few easy bits.”
“I wish you joy, then.”
“Why? what sort of a fellow is Mr Paton?”
“Mr Paton? he’s not a man at all; he’s a machine; he’s the wheel of a mill; he’s a cast-iron automaton; he’s—”
“The abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet,” observed Henderson, who had caught a fragment of the conversation. “I’m in his form, too, worse luck!”
“Hush! shut up, Henderson, and don’t be profane,” said Kenrick. “Well, Evson, you’ll soon find out what Paton’s like; anything but ‘a patten of bright gold’ at any rate.”