“Look sharp,” said Paul, “here comes Rastle.” Mr Rastle was the small boys’ tutor and governor. Stephen took the hint, and was very soon curled up, with his brave blanket round him, in bed, where, despite the despairing thought of his paper, the cruel injustice of the owner of the jam-pots, and the general hardness of his lot, he could not help feeling he was a good deal more at home at Saint Dominic’s than he had ever yet found himself.
Of one thing he was determined. He would be up at six next morning, and make one last desperate dash at his exam paper.
Chapter Five.
Shaking down to Work.
“Master Greenfield, junior, is to go to the head master’s study at half-past nine,” called out Mr Roach, the school porter, putting his head into the dormitory, at seven o’clock next morning.
Stephen had been up an hour, making fearful and wonderful shots of answers to his awful questions, half of which he had already ticked off as done for better or worse. “If I write something down to each,” thought he to himself, “I might happen to get one thing right; it’ll be better than putting down no answer at all.”
“Half-past nine!” said he to Paul, on hearing this announcement; “ten was the time I was told.”
“Who told you?”