These were short and to the point,—
“‘A general meeting of the Conversation Club was held on Monday in the Examination Hall. With his usual mulishness, Sarah thought he’d have a cut in, and it was resolved to give him a chance. Thanks to the drivelling idiotcy of Warminster, who doesn’t even know the feminine genitive of corpus, he scraped through; and, as he couldn’t do much worse than Coxhead, he did a shade better.’”
“All very well,” growled Coxhead, “he did a jolly sight better than you.”
“‘Coxhead, who is hereby expelled for using slang, was, as usual, down with the paupers at the bottom. A town cad called Brown, who managed to conceal his cribs, came out first, and it was decided to tack Sarah on to him. Trimble, as might be expected, came a cropper in his English grammar—’”
“A cram! They never examined us in it!”
“There you are; you don’t even know it when you see it—‘came a cropper in his English grammar.’”
“I tell you I didn’t,” expostulated Trimble. “Shut up.”
“Shut what up?”
“Yourself.”
“Come and shut me.”