Burgess answered. "Thou art not the man, laddie."
"Is it Loring?" I asked from the other side.
"The prize has not gone to my illustrious Sixth."
"O'Rane," Loring murmured, looking down the school.
"Neither to the less illustrious Under Sixth," said Burgess. He arose and strode to the Birch Table. "The result of the Shelton Greek Verse Prize is as follows: First, Sinclair. Proxime accesserunt Sutcliffe and Loring. There were twenty-three entries. I believe this is the first time the prize has been won by a member of the Remove. Sinclair will stay behind after prayers."
He stalked back to his seat, and the school, after a moment's perplexed hesitation, broke into tumultuous applause. As the name was given out I heard a whispered, "Who? Sinclair? Rot!" Yet there was no one else of that name in the school. Bracebridge spun round in his chair to gaze at his astonishing pupil, and I could see Sinclair, scarlet of face, half-rising from his seat, when Burgess threw his cassock on to the floor and intoned the "Oremus."
There was little reverence in that day's prayers. As monitor of the week I knelt in front of the Birch Table and out of the corner of my eye could see the Fourth patting Sinclair surreptitiously on the back and the Shell turning round with admiring grimaces. Burgess alone seemed unsurprised. "In nomine Patris, et Filii et Spiritus Sancti," he intoned as I finished reading prayers. "Ire licet," he called out, as I returned to his side. The lower forms filed out, till the whole of Great School below the dais was empty, and Sinclair stood blushing by the Birch Table. Burgess opened the Honour Book and ran quickly through the back pages for two years.
"This is the first school prize thou hast won, laddie?" he demanded. "Let it not be the last. Come hither, and on the tablets of thy mind record these my words. Here thou writest thy name, and here the date, and here the English and here thy polished Greek. In a fair, round hand, laddie."
He closed the book with a snap and struggled out of his gown.
"I'm ... I'm afraid there's a mistake, sir," Sinclair stammered.