“A most creditable letter,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett with the benign purr of an unusually well-nurtured feline. “A little unconventional, perhaps—but no matter. May I ask where you were educated?”
“I—I—I d-don’t t-think I k-know, sir,” the boy stammered. This question was not in the programme.
“Curious,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, purring more benignly than ever—“Curious not to know where one was educated. Yet, perhaps it is immaterial. One board school must be very like another. What is your age?”
The boy’s heart gave a leap. This question was unmistakably in the programme.
“E-eighteen y-years and f-fifteen days, sir,” he said.
“How odd,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, whose delightful simper expanded to the region of the smile. “What a curious computation. One had no idea that the Board School was so precise in these matters. I must mention this to my friend Arnold. By the way, I showed my friend Arnold your nice letter. He did not consider it typical of the Board School. He said the style had a flavour of latinity. Do they provide for instruction in Latin in the Board School curriculum?”
“I—I—I d-don’t t-think I know, sir,” said the boy. The question was not in the programme.
“Then perhaps we might assume that they don’t,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett. “Perhaps the pleasing flavour of latinity in your epistolary style is due to one of those mysterious side currents of descent which continually perplex the best biographers.”
Mr. Octavius Crumpett’s manner of saying this seemed to be designed to suggest that if his natural power of mind had betrayed him into saying anything unusual, he hoped it would be understood that the solecism of which he was guilty was not due to ignorance of the foremost practice, but was rather the fruit of uncontrollable natural forces.
“You do not look very robust,” he said, looking at the frail figure steadily through the glass that rendered his right eye so formidable. “Are you used to hard work?”