“I couldn’t say; but I don’t see who else could.”
“That will do, Loman; you can go. Kindly leave the paper and the Juvenal with me.”
Loman turned to go, but the Doctor stopped him with one more question.
“You know, I suppose, that the questions which you actually had set for the Nightingale examination were quite different from those on the paper?”
“Yes,” said Loman. “I mean—that is,” he added, stammering, and taking up the paper in question. “I see by this paper they were quite different.”
“Yes; you can go now, Loman.”
There was something so solemn and hard in the head master’s voice as he dismissed the boy that Loman felt very uncomfortable as he slowly departed to his own study.
He, at any rate, was in no humour for enjoying the big football match which was just beginning.
And it must be confessed the event of the morning had had the effect of disconcerting a good many more than himself. Stansfield had quite hard work going round among his troops and rousing them once more to the proper pitch of enthusiasm.
“What—whatever does it matter,” he said, “if the fellow did take it? You didn’t take it, Winter, or you, Wren; and what on earth’s the use of getting down in the mouth, and perhaps losing the match, because of it? We’re always having our football spoiled by something or other,” he added with a groan. “I’ll tell you what it is, let’s only lick these fellows this afternoon, and then I’ll howl and groan and do anything you like, for a week.”