The door has just been unlocked, a grey-haired portly man in an M.A. gown lets the flood of sombrely-clad louts of seventeen and eighteen rush past the Eton-collared, more brilliant youngsters of fourteen, so that they may secure the place nearest to the pipes, or sit in remote corners with their backs against the wall, covered by the form in front from any possible detection.
The master makes his way to his desk, sits down and raps out suddenly:
"Stop talking there; how many times have I told you to stop talking as soon as you come into the room? Harrison minor, are you still conversing? Thank you, thank you for your momentary attention. If you will be so good as to bring me the last three hundred lines of the Fourth Æneid on Thursday, second school, we shall be, I think, at one again. Shut your books. Write out the Rep." Silence then follows, except for the scraping of pens, the dropping of books and mathematical instruments, and the whispered monotone of one boy who is copying it straight from the book on to the paper. Several others after a time, at a loss how to continue, peer gently over their neighbours' shoulders and, enlightened, proceed.
One of the bigger boys, more muscular but even less intellectual than the rest, produces a paper-covered novel of Mr. Nat Gould from his pocket and proceeds to read with some fervour when he has copied his repetition: two others are engaged in an acrimonious conversation, "You —— young swine, I'll damned well lick you after for that. Blast you, take your arm away, I can't see a word you've written."
"I say, your crowd were a lot of stumors yesterday; so you thought you were the House for the 'pot.' My God! Talk about swank!"... And so on, until the master who has hurriedly been correcting some analysis, which the form wished to have back (this is an English lesson, by the way) suddenly raises his head, apparently having heard and seen nothing, and says, "Anybody finished yet? Ah! you have, Dixon. Now hurry up, the rest of you; I've a lot to do to-day," and then breathlessly he turns to his corrections again, until he has done, then calling the nearest boy to him tells him to give out the corrected papers. "By the way, we'll correct that Rep. you've just done. I'll read it out to you. Four marks a line and one off for every word wrong—"
"Anon the great San Philip she bethought ..."
He wheezes the noble poem out in lines like so many rashers of bacon, gives the form a moment's respite in which to add (which they do very generously to themselves) the number of marks. He then proceeds to give a long disquisition on adjectival adjuncts and subordinate clauses. "Surely, Morgan, your knowledge of the Latin tongue should have shown you that——"
A school messenger interrupts.
"The Head Master to see Haxton at once, sir." Subdued murmurs and a casual whistle emanate as a fair-haired, good-looking boy goes off, blushing. In an undertone one of the biggest fellows at the back says to his neighbour, "There'll be Hell to pay, my son, if that little fool starts confessing his and our past, he's gone for confirmagger-pi-jaw, he won't stick much of that Devil's talk; he'll let on at once, and—Hell! Yes, sir? No, sir, I wasn't talking. Oh, sorry sir, I thought you meant now, sir, I was just asking how many marks Jaques had got, sir."
While the monotonous teaching of analysis goes on, several of the boys at the back might be noticed by any one not quite blind to be writing notes which are hurriedly passed along the form surreptitiously, others again are feverishly learning Greek irregular verbs for their next hour, when they go to a man who canes for every failure to answer a question; more still might be seen writing lines under cover or pretence of taking notes, for the master has now finished his analysis and is carefully reading out notes from a "Verity" edition of Twelfth Night, which play the form are supposed to be enjoying, notes which each boy has carefully to take down and learn, notes in which he learns for the thousandth time that moe = more, nief = hand, and some interesting but watered-down details about the lives of Penthesilea, Ariadne, and other classical favourites. In the intervals of taking down whatever portion of this rubbish that various members of the form think fit, the idiot of the form (there is always one) is being quietly tortured in many ways, gentlemen behind kick him violently forward, the quiet youth on his left has been silently pinching his ears and pulling his hair, with a calculating brutality that exists scarcely anywhere except in the Public Schools and the South Sea Islands.