And, putting on a look of pitying contempt—which must have been quite a success, to judge by the dejection written on the faces before me—I proceeded to give them a little lecture on their arithmetical shortcomings. I felt saved. It was near the time for dismissing the class.
"Boys," said I, to finish up, "I must have been sadly mistaken in you; the best thing we can do is to go back to addition and subtraction to-morrow."
Without being quite so hard as that upon them, I set them an easy task for the next lesson; the bell rang, and the boys dispersed.
I immediately went to the head mathematical master, and had the difficulty explained away in a few seconds.
How simple things are when they are explained, to be sure!
Armed with a new insight into Stocks, I was ready for my young friends the following Friday. After the ordinary work had been got through:
"Now," I said, "have you had another try at that sum, any of you?"
"Yes, sir; but we can't do it," was the reply.
"Well," I said, in a relenting tone, as I went to the blackboard, "I suppose we had better do it together."
I made the boys confess it was too stupid of them to have proved unequal to this simple sum; and thus they regained my good graces.