The mention of this damped my ardour a bit, I can tell you!
“Oh, I quite forgot that!” I exclaimed lugubriously. “When have I got to go up for exam., Dad?”
“The ‘first Wednesday in August,’ my boy—so says this letter at all events.”
“Good gracious me!” ejaculated my mother, again breaking into our conversation after a brief pause, during which she must have gone through an abstract mental calculation. “Why, that will be barely a month from now, my dear!”
“Precisely, this being the third of July,” replied Dad drily. “So Master Jack will have to stir his stumps if he hopes to pass, for I’m afraid he’s rather shaky in his Euclid.”
“Dear, dear!” said mother, throwing up her arms in consternation, “he is very backward in his history, too! Would you believe it, he couldn’t recollect when Magna Charta was signed on my asking him the date yesterday.”
“Really?” cried Dad, leaning back in his chair, and bursting into a hearty laugh at my mother’s serious face, “I’m sure, my dear, I could not tell you the date off-hand myself at the present moment, not if I were even going to be hanged in default! Jack knows, though, I’d wager, when the glorious battle of Trafalgar was fought; and that concerns a British sailor boy more, I think, than any other event in the whole history of our plucky little island, save perhaps the defeat of the grand Armada. What say you, my boy?”
“Of course, I know the date of the battle of Trafalgar, Dad,” I answered glibly enough, having heard it mentioned too often to have forgotten it in a hurry; and, besides, I knew Southey’s Life of Nelson almost by heart, it being one of my favourite books and ranking in my estimation next to Robinson Crusoe. “It was fought, Dad, on the 21st October 1805.”
“There, mother, just hear that!” cried Dad, chaffingly. “Are you not proud of your boy in blue? By Jove, he’ll set the Thames on fire if he goes on at that rate!”
“I am proud of him; but I do not wish him to fail,” replied mother, who took things generally au serieux; and, turning to me, she said in her earnest way,—“Dear Jack, I’m afraid you are too confident and do not attend to your lessons now as you used to do. Pray, work hard, my dear boy, for my sake!”