Johnson Minor, with hanging head and red eyes, passed out to write it, the whole poem, fifty times before lock-up. He would miss the match. Outside, in the passage, he suddenly remembered the whole verse clearly, perfectly; but it was too late.
At last one prisoner only remained—Garden Minimus, a cheerful, untidy person aged ten, in enormous boots and no kind of parting to his hair.
Garden Minimus was the boy whom Perrin liked best in the whole school—had liked him best for the last two years. When things were really black, when headaches were violent, and when unpopularity seemed to hang about him in a dense, thick cloud, there was always Garden Minimus. He flattered himself that the boy was not aware of this partiality; but the boy, he was sure, liked him. He treated him always with an elaborate irony that the boy seemed to understand in some curious way. Garden would stand, with his head on one side like a rather intelligent small dog, and although he rarely said anything more than “Yes, sir,” or “No, sir,” Perrin felt that he grasped the situation.
On this afternoon it was plain that Garden Minimus did not know a word of “The Patriot,” and had made no attempt whatever to learn it.
Mr. Perrin looked at him with a slow smile. “I'm afraid, friend Garden,” he said, “that it will devolve upon your lordship—hum—ha—that you should write this poem of the noble Mr. Robert Browning's no less than fifty times. I grieve—I sympathize—I am your humble servant; but the law commands.”
Garden Minimus brushed Mr. Perrin's fine periods aside, and said, with a most engaging smile, “There's a most ripping footer match this afternoon, sir.”
“Fool though I am,” said Mr. Perrin, “I have nevertheless observed that there is, as you say, a footer match. Nevertheless, I am afraid 'The Patriot' calls you, friend Garden.”
“It would be an awful pity,” said Garden reflectively, without paying the slightest attention to Mr. Perrin, “to miss a decent game like that.”
Suddenly Mr. Perrin was irritated. He snapped out sharply, “All right, Garden; that will do. You 'll get it a hundred times if you aren't careful!”
Garden, realizing his defeat, moved slowly out of the room, his forehead lowering. Outside the door he muttered, “Silly, pompous ass!”