He appeared at his desk as usual in the afternoon. Dick Loftus was at his, a little sore about the arms. Suddenly, amidst the silence that follows the first settling down of a large number of students, a voice was heard.
"Who has done this?"
It came from Paradyne. He was standing with a paper of many sheets in his hand, and had spoken aloud in his shock of surprise. The paper was a Latin essay, to go in that night to the Head Master; it had taken him many days to write it.
"What is the matter?" asked Mr. Jebb.
Paradyne left his place and carried up the paper. It was torn, blotted, soaked in ink almost from beginning to end. The contents of one inkstand could scarcely have put it in the state it was.
"What is it?" cried Mr. Jebb, gazing at the black relic.
"It is my Latin essay, sir. I left it clean and perfect in my desk after morning school."
"Your Latin essay! You left it—— Nonsense, Paradyne," broke off Mr. Jebb, "you must have had an accident with it: you have been upsetting the ink."
The whole school was staring and wondering. On the merit of these essays was supposed to lie very much the decision of the Head Master, whether their author should or should not go up for the Oxford. The school denied all knowledge of the affair. The first desk, collectively and individually, protested they had had no hand in it, and a whisper arose that Paradyne had done it himself to hide the poorness of his Latin. There was no time to attempt another.
"He can't go up for the Oxford now," were the first words that greeted Paradyne's ears when the hall rose; and they came from Dick Loftus.