This last cause of celebrity, however, was one which did not please Stephen. He had come to Saint Dominic’s with a great quantity of good resolutions, the chief of which was that he would work hard and keep out of mischief, and it grieved him much to find that in neither aim was he succeeding.
The first evening or two he had worked very diligently at preparation. He had taken pains with his fractions, and looked out every word in his Caesar. He had got Oliver to look over his French, and Loman had volunteered to correct the spelling of his “theme;” and yet he stuck at the bottom of the class. Other boys went up and down. Some openly boasted that they had had their lessons done for them, and others that they had not done them at all. A merry time they had of it; but Stephen, down at the bottom, was in dismal dumps. He could not get up, and he could not get down, and all his honest hard work went for nothing.
And so, not content to give that system a longer trial, he grew more lax in his work. He filched the answers to his sums out of the “Key,” and copied his Caesar out of the “crib.” It was much easier, and the result was the same. He did not get up, and he could not get down.
Oliver catechised him now and then as to his progress, and received vague answers in reply, and Loman never remembered a fag that pestered him less with lessons. Stephen was, in fact, settling down into the slough of idleness, and would have become an accomplished dunce in time, had not Mr Rastle come to the rescue. That gentleman caught the new boy in an idle mood, wandering aimlessly down the passage one afternoon.
“Ah, Greenfield, is that you? Nothing to do, eh? Come and have tea with me, will you, in my room?”
Stephen, who had bounded as if shot on hearing the master’s unexpected voice behind him, turned round and blushed very red, and said “Thank you,” and then looked like a criminal just summoned to the gallows.
“That’s right, come along;” and the master took the lad by the arm and marched him off to his room.
Here the sight of muffins and red-currant jam, in addition to the ordinary attractions of a tea-table, somewhat revived Stephen’s drooping spirits.
“Make yourself comfortable, my boy, while the tea is brewing,” said Mr Rastle, cheerily. “Have you been playing any cricket since you came?”
“Only a little, sir,” said Stephen.