He would then turn out the light and go downstairs to his room. The oak-steps outside were worn in the middle and I had noticed that as one goes downstairs one treads on the very edge of each step.
One day “Shaddy” had maddened me by giving me one hundred lines of Vergil to learn by heart for some trifling peccadillo. That night, having provided myself with a cake of brown Windsor soap, I ran upstairs before the other boys and rubbed the soap freely on the edge of the two top steps, and then went on to undress.
When “Shaddy” put out the light and stepped down to the second step, there was a slip and then a great thud as he half slid, half fell to the bottom. In a moment, for my bed was nearest the door, I had sprung up, opened the door and made incoherent exclamations of sympathy as I helped him to get up.
“I’ve hurt my hip”, he said, putting his hand on it. He couldn’t account for his fall.
Grinning to myself as I went back, I rubbed the soap off the top step with my handkerchief and got into bed again, where I chuckled over the success of my stratagem. He had only got what he richly deserved, I said to myself.
At length the long term wore to its end; the Exam was held and after consulting Stackpole I was very sure of the second prize. “I believe”, he said one day, “that you’d rather have the second prize than the first.” “Indeed I would”, I replied without thinking.
“Why?” he asked, “why!” I only just restrained myself in time or I’d have given him the true reason. “You’ll come much nearer winning the Scholarship”, he said at length, “than any of them guesses.”
After the “Exams” came the athletic games, much more interesting than the beastly lessons. I won two first prizes and Jones four, but I gained fifteen “seconds”, a record, I believe, for according to my age I was still in the Lower School.
I was fully aware of the secret of my success and strange to say, it did not increase but rather diminished my conceit. I won, not through natural advantages but by will-power and practice. I should have been much prouder had I succeeded through natural gifts. For instance, there was a boy named Reggie Miller, who at sixteen was five feet ten in height, while I was still under five feet: do what I would, he could jump higher than I could, though he only jumped up to his chin while I could jump the bar above my head. I believed that Reggie could easily practice and then outjump me still more. I had yet to learn in life that the resolved will to succeed was more than any natural advantage. But this lesson only came to me later. From the beginning I was taking the highway to success in everything by strengthening my will even more than my body. Thus, every handicap in natural deficiency turns out to be an advantage in life to the brave soul, whereas every natural gift is surely a handicap. Demosthenes had a difficulty in his speech, practising to overcome this, made him the greatest of orators.
The last day came at length and at eleven o’clock all the school and a goodly company of guests and friends gathered in the schoolroom to hear the results of the examinations and especially the award of the scholarships. Though most of the boys were early at the great blackboard where the official figures were displayed, I didn’t even go near it till one little boy told me shyly: “You’re head of your Form and sure of your remove.”