“Now, young gentlemen,” said Morris sharply, “our Principal’s address is not to interfere with my examination. You have your papers. Pro—”
There was a pause.
”—Ceed!” shouted Mr Morris.
There was the scratching of pens upon papers, but upon very few; most of the boys taking their pens and putting them down again, to rest their elbows on the desks and their chins upon their thumbs, as they fixed their eyes upon the column-like pile of questions printed quite close to the left side of the sheets of foolscap, while the three masters at the two ends and in the middle of the theatre seated themselves, book in hand, ready to hold up high before their faces so that they could conveniently peer over the top and make certain that there were not any more culprits than one within reach of their piercing eyes.
Mr Morris, to pass his three hours gently and pleasantly, opened a very old copy, by Blankborough, upon logarithms; Monsieur Brohanne had armed himself with a heavy tome of La Grande Encyclopédie, with a bookmark therein at the page dealing with the ancient langue d’oc; while Mr Rampson, also linguistical, opened a sickly-looking vellum volume, horribly mildewy and stained, and made as if to read a very brown page of Greek whose characters looked like so many tiny creases and shrinkings in a piece of dry skin.
Only one boy spoke, and that was Glyn Severn, and he to himself; but at the same time he had caught Singh’s eye as he sat some distance from him, and, placing his sheet of foolscap by his side, he raised his blotting-pad so that his companion could see a great blotch of ink thereon which seemed as if it had been roughly made by a brush that had been dipped in ink.
This done, he laid the pad back in its place, twisted the fold towards him, and taking a bright, new two-bladed knife that had been purchased with the proceeds of the Colonel’s cheque, he opened the large blade and carefully passed it along the fold, setting free one half-sheet of the absorbent paper. This he folded and put in his pocket; but the ink had gone through to the next half-sheet, and this he also separated, treating it as he did the first. This left two half-sheets, with the possibility of their slipping about and away from the rest. So, after pocketing his knife, he opened the remainder where they were folded, and refolded the pad inside out, so as to leave the two cut half-sheets in the middle.
“That nasty nuisance of a cat!” he muttered to himself. “It must have come along smelling after poor little Burton’s white mice, and smudged my paper like this. Ah,” he continued, to himself, “I have promised the poor little chap that I’ll lick Master Slegge, and— Hullo! What’s this? What does old Morris mean by giving me half-used paper, and the other fellows new?”
His hands had been busy redoubling and smoothing the fold over the now prisoned half-sheets, and he was about to hold up his hand as a sign to the nearest master that he wanted to speak; but he let it fall again upon the desk, and sat gazing down at some indistinctly seen lines upon the blotting-paper, which looked as if a letter had been inserted wet within the pad and hastily blotted.
He could barely read a word, but somehow his curiosity was aroused, and he turned the leaf over, to find that the newly written letter had been placed in contact with the other side, the lines looking far blacker there, but seen like a page of printing type the reverse way on, so that he could not read a word.