And so I rambled on, while the paper in front of me remained empty.
The inspirations never came. The hours whizzed past, and my penholder was nibbled half away. In vain I searched the ceilings, and my thumb-nails; they gave me no help. In vain I read over the examination paper a score of times. It was all question and no answer there. In vain I stared at the doctor as he sat quietly writing; he had no ideas for me. In vain I tried to count, from where I sat, how many sheets Johnson had filled; that did not help to fill mine. Then I read my questions over again, very closely, and was in the act of wondering who first decided that p’s should turn one way in print and q’s another, when the doctor said, “Half an hour more!”
I was electrified. I madly began answering questions at random. Anything to get my paper filled. But, fast as I wrote, I could not keep pace with Wilton, whose pen flew along the paper; and he, I knew, was writing what would get him marks while I was writing rubbish. Presently my attention was diverted by watching Walker gather up and pin together his papers. I looked at my watch. Five minutes more. At the same time the doctor took out his. I could not help wondering if it was a Geneva or an English watch, and whether it had belonged to his father before him, as mine had. Ah! my father, my poor father and mother!
“Cease work, please, and hand in your papers.”
I declined Wilton’s invitation to come and see his moth, and slunk to my room miserable and disgusted.
Even now I do not like to recall the interval which elapsed between the examination and the declaration of the result. To Johnson, Wilton and Walker it was an interval of feverish suspense; to me it was one of stolid despair. I was ashamed to show my face among my schoolfellows; ashamed to write home; ashamed to look at a book. The nearer the day came the more wretched I grew; I positively became ill with misery, and begged to be allowed to go home without waiting for the result.
I had a long interview with the doctor before I quitted Welford; but no good advice of his, no exhortations, could alter my despair.
“My boyhood has been a failure,” I said to him, “and I know my manhood will be one too.”
He only looked very sorrowful, and wrung my hand.
The meeting with my parents was worst of all; but over that I draw a veil.