Tom, Dick and Harry Part 12

In fear and trembling I presented myself, and confronted not Miss Steele but Miss Bousfield, who addressed me in terse and forcible language, and gave me to understand that I was a person of extremely second-rate character and attainments. I acknowledged it, but hoped for an opportunity of improving her impressions.

"I shall leave it to Miss Steele to do as she thinks best," said the head mistress. "I am sorry indeed her time has been wasted over a worthless pupil. You had better wait till she comes."

I waited grimly, like a culprit for the jury. When she came in and saw, as I suppose, my woebegone face, I read hope in her manner.

"I got your note, Jones," said she.

"Oh! I say, Miss Steele, I'm really frightfully sorry. I know it was a caddish thing to do, especially when you had been so kind. Look here, I did all those sums myself, without help; and here's another batch I've done since; and--and--" (here I resolved to play a trump card) "and I got this black eye sticking up for you."

That settled it. She smiled once more and said, "Well, Jones, I'll say no more about it this once. I had made up my mind it was no use our going on together; but I'll try, if you will."

"Try--I'll kill myself working," said I, "to make up."

"That wouldn't do much good," said she; "but I'll try to forget all this ever happened, and we'll go on just where we left off."

"That was page 72," said I eagerly; "and, I say, Miss Steele, you remember my telling you about Tempest, and d.i.c.ky Brown, you know; well--"

"Is that on page 72, or is it something which we can talk about when work is done?"

So I got my chance once again, and this time I stuck to it.

The nearer the time came, the more desperately we worked. Sometimes Miss Steele had positively to hunt me out for a walk, or, if I would not go alone, to drag me along with her to some place where, regardless of our possible detection by Evans and his friends, we could combine fresh air and education.

The fatal day came at last when I had to go off to my ordeal. I was obliged at the last moment to disclose my well-kept secret to my mother and my guardian. The former fell on my neck, the latter grunted incredulously and embarra.s.sed me by presenting me with a five-s.h.i.+lling piece.

Miss Steele came down to see me off at the station. "Keep cool," said she; "sit where you can see the clock, and don't try to answer two questions at once."

Never did tyro get better advice!

I was too excited to heed much of the big stately building I was so eager some day to claim as my own school. It was holiday time, and only a little band of combatants like myself huddled into one corner of the big hall, and gazed up in an awestruck way at the portrait of the Jacobean knight to whom Low Heath owed its foundation.

To me it was all like a dream. I woke to discover a paper on the desk before me; a paper bristling with questions, each of them challenging me to get into the school if I could. Then I remember das.h.i.+ng my pen into the ink and beginning to write.

"Keep cool. Keep your eye on the clock. Try one question at a time,"

echoed a voice in my ear.

How lonely I felt there all by myself! How I wished I could turn and see _her_ at my side!

The clock crawled round from eleven to three, and I went on writing.

Then I remember a hand coming along the desk and taking the papers out of my sight. Then a bewildered train journey home, and a hundred questions at the other end.

I went on dreaming for a week, conscious sometimes of my mother's face, sometimes of Miss Steele's, sometimes of Mr Evans's. But what I did with myself in the interval I should be sorry to be called upon to tell.

At last, one morning, I woke with a vengeance, as I held in my hand a paper on which were printed a score or so of names, third among which I made out the words--

"Jones, T.--(Miss M. Steele, High School, Fallowfield): Exhibition, 40."

So I was a Low Heathen at last!

CHAPTER SIX.

UP TO FORM.

I have reason to fear that for a fortnight after I received the astounding news of my scholastic success I was an intolerable nuisance to my friends and a ridiculous spectacle to my enemies.

I may have had some excuse. I had worked hard, and got myself into a "tilted" state of mind altogether. Still, that was no reason why I should consider that the whole world was standing still to look on at my triumph; still less why I should patronise my mother and Miss Steele and Miss Bousfield as three well-intentioned persons who had just had an object-lesson in the inferiority of their s.e.x.

My mother and Miss Steele were too delighted to mind my airs. They were really proud--one to be my mother, the other to be my "coach." And when I strutted in and talked as if they barely knew how honoured they were by my company, they laughed good-humouredly, and said to one another,--

"No wonder he's pleased with himself, dear boy."

Miss Bousfield was less disposed to bow the knee.

"I hope you won't forget what you owe to Miss Steele," said she. "I never hoped she could make as much as she did of such unpromising material. It's what I always have said--good teaching can make a scholar of a dunce."

"Ah," said I, "you thought I was a dunce. I determined you should see I wasn't. I am glad your school gets the credit of the exhibition."

"I'll wait and see how you turn out, before I am glad," said she. "I hope the High School will not get a reputation for turning out prigs, Jones."

I couldn't quite understand Miss Bousfield. She was not as cordial as I thought she might be, considering the honour I had brought upon her school.

My guardian's clerks were even less impressed by my distinction than she.

"What's the matter this morning?" said Mr Evans on the day of my triumph, as I sat smiling inwardly at my desk.

"Nothing particular," said I.

"It looks as if it was bad stomach-ache--I'd try camomile pills, if I were you."

"Thank you--I don't require pills. If you want to know, I've been up for an exam, and pa.s.sed."

"Been up where?"

"Up for an exam.--an examination," said I, surprised at their density.

"Where, at the girls' school?"

"Girls' school, no; at Low Heath." Mr Evans looked grave, and beckoned his comrades a little nearer.

"Awfully sad, isn't it?" said he, with a seriousness which surprised me.

"Yes. It's a good inst.i.tution, though. My uncle tried to get a case in there once, but failed." I wasn't surprised to hear that.

"They only let the _very_ dotty ones in," said Mr Evans. "Besides, it'll be a part payment case--at least, I should think the governor will plank down something."

"It's worth 40 a year for four years," said I, understanding very imperfectly the drift of these remarks, but pleased at least to find I had succeeded in impressing my fellow-clerks.