CHAPTER V.
THE PAPER-CHASE.
TWO days after this, Alfred received a letter from his mother which made him very happy. The letter said that his father would be back in about a fortnight, and would have time to come home for a few days before going away again. His father was much better, and he was coming with his mother, and Maggie as well, to see Alfred and hear him sing in the fine old cathedral. Was not Alfred glad when he read that!
He was so pleased, that he read it again and again. It was a long letter, and there was something else in it. The lady whom Alfred had met at the deanery had called upon his mother, and her husband was coming with her to see Alfred’s father directly he returned.
It need hardly be said that Alfred showed this letter to both his friends, and even to Mr. Cottenham, who met him near the cathedral.
Walter said he would try to find out who put the answers in Alfred’s book; both Steve and he believed that it was either King or Cox. Walter thought that Cox used answers, as he was a dunce at sums, and that King had either put the page in Alfred’s book, or had told Cox to do so. He knew that the answers would only be used by a boy who was weak in sums, and who was doing practice, as the answers were for that part of the arithmetic book. King was good at arithmetic and much more advanced, so that the answers would not be of any use to him. There were two other boys who sat at the same desk as Alfred and Cox, and one of them was doing practice also, but the other was quite a little boy who had not got so far. So Walter thought that it must be either Cox or the other boy, whose name was Frank Pitt.
On the previous day Cox could not get his sums right, and had been kept in, while Frank Pitt’s were all right. He could not doubt that it was Cox alone who wanted the answers to help him, and so he determined to watch him.
Walter taught all the smallest boys, who were called probationers. As their name explains, they came on trial, and if they did well and behaved themselves they became choir-boys, if not, they had to leave. Now one of these little boys, Thomas Brown, was the fourth boy who sat at Alfred’s desk, and during the interval, Walter thought he would ask him a few questions, as he sat next to Cox.
“Tommy,” he said, “does Cox ever help you with your sums?”
“No,” replied Brown, “he can’t do his own always.”
“Can he do them sometimes, then?”