Perrin and Traill exchanged no word during breakfast.
II.
Garden Minimus played his small part in the whole affair by being sulky and obstinate during the whole of first hour. It was a game that he was perfectly accustomed to playing, and he knew every move from the opening gambit of “saying things under your breath that looked bad, but couldn't possibly be heard,” to the triumphant checkmate of a studied, sarcastic politeness that was most unusual and hinted at danger.
Perrin had slept, as we have seen, exceedingly badly, and the old hallucination that twenty boys were in reality five hundred crept over him. They sat in stupid, irritated rows at hard wooden desks soiled with ink. Beyond the drab windows the wind howled, and the dry leaves blew against the panes.
His temper rose as the hour advanced. The fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid was scarcely calculated to show dull boys at their brightest and best, and Perrin found that, by changing the letters of the figure on the board, the form knew nothing about it at all.
He proceeded, as was his way, to secure the dullest, fattest, and heaviest boy (a youngster with spectacles and a protruding chin, called Somerset-Walpole) and to make merry at his expense. Somerset-Walpole—his fingers exuded ink, his coat whitewash, and his hair dust—stood with his mouth open and his brow wrinkled, and a vague wonder as to why, when he ought to be thinking about Euclid, his mind would invariably wander to the bristly hairs at the back of Mr. Perrin's neck and the silly leaves dancing about outside.
Mr. Perrin played heavily with him for about quarter of an hour (the form laughing nervously at his ironical sallies), and then sent the youngster back, crying, to his seat; the boy spent the rest of the hour in drawing hideous people with noses like pens and tiny legs, and then smudging them out with his fingers.
Then Perrin had Garden Minimus in his hands. The boy's sulking, frowning face drove him to fury. He suddenly felt (as though it had leapt wildly from some dark corner on to his shoulder) the Cat of Cruelty purring at his ear. It was an animal whose whispers he heard, as a rule, only when the term was well advanced; now it was upon him. He knew, suddenly, that he would like to take Garden Minimus's ears in his hands and twist them back further and further until they cracked. He would like to take his little fat arms and close his fingers about them and pinch them until they were blue. He would like to take the sharp, white knuckles and beat them with a ruler. Garden had chubby cheeks and bright blue eyes. Perrin began to pull, very gently, his hair. Garden wriggled a little.
“Take the triangle A B C,” he began, and stopped. Perrin began to pinch the back of his neck.
“You have said that six times now, Garden. Say it again, because I am sure the rest of the form are immensely interested. Really, I grieve to think of the amount of time that you must have spent over your preparation last night. You 'll be overdoing it if you go on like this, you know—you will, really. You mustn't work so hard. Meanwhile write it out thirty times, and say it to me to-night after tea.”