As the boy put up his hands, the Doctor dropped a Chocdrop into his mouth. 'Good. Now then Parkinson, if you can obey that simple instruction, there's not the slightest doubt you can pass the exam.'
'But I can't read,' whimpered Parkinson, and evidently tried to wag his tail.
Doctor Hardboldt looked at him grimly. 'Can't read? Stuff and nonsense, sir. Any boy whose parents can afford to pay my fees must be able to read.'
'But I'm dyslexic, sir.'
The Doctor stiffened. 'So,' he said. 'In that case we'll have to apply for you to take your O-levels orally. Take this note to my secretary.'
As Parkinson wobbled from the room, the Doctor turned back to the class. 'Is there any other do...boy here who can't read? I don't want any shilly-shallying. If you can't read, say so, and we'll have you attended to by the hypnotist.'
But no one in the class needed the attentions of the hypnotist.
The second week was spent writing down verbatim the answers to the questions and in further reinforcement. Peregrine was woken every so often during the night and interrogated. 'What is the answer to question four in the History paper?' said the doctor.
Peregrine peered bleary-eyed into the ferocious moustache. 'Gladstone's policy of Home Rule for Ireland was prevented from becoming law because Chamberlain, formerly the radical Mayor of Birmingham, split the Liberal party and...'
'Good dog,' said the doctor when he had finished and rewarded him with a Chocdrop.
But it was in the third week that reinforcement became most rigorous. 'A tired mind is a receptive mind,' the doctor announced on Sunday evening. 'From now on, you will be limited to four hours sleep in every twenty-four, one hour in every six being allocated for rest. Before you go to sleep, you will write down the answers to one exam paper and, on being woken, will write them down again before going on to the next subject. In this way, you will be unable to fail your O-levels even if you want to.'
After seven more days of conditioning, Peregrine returned to his parents exhausted and with his brain so stuffed with exam answers that his parents had their own sleep interrupted by an occasional bark and the sound of Peregrine automatically reciting the doctor's orders. They were further disturbed by Dr Hardboldt's insistence that Peregrine be prevented from returning to Groxbourne until after he had sat his exams. 'It is absolutely essential that he isn't exposed to the confusion of other methods of teaching,' he said. 'Nothing is more damaging to an animal's learning ability than contradictory stimuli.'
'But Peregrine isn't an animal,' protested Mrs Clyde-Browne. 'He's a delicate, sensitive '
'Animal,' said her husband, whose views on his son coincided entirely with the Doctor's.
'Exactly,' said Dr Hardboldt. 'Now where most teachers go wrong is in failing to apply the methods used in animal training to their pupils. If a seal can be taught to balance a ball on its nose, a boy can be taught to pass exams.'
'But the questions are surely different every year,' said Mr Clyde-Browne.
Dr Hardboldt shook his head. 'They can't be. If they were, no one could possibly teach the answers. Those are the rules of the game.'
'I hope you're right,' said Mrs Clyde-Browne.
'Madam, I am,' said the Doctor. 'Time will prove it.'
And time, as far as Peregrine was concerned, did. He returned to Groxbourne a month late and, with the air of a sleepwalker, took his O-level exams with every sign that this time he would succeed. Even the Headmaster, glancing through the papers before sending them off to the external examiners, was impressed. 'If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed it possible,' he muttered, and immediately wrote to the Clyde-Brownes to assure them that they could go ahead with their plans to enter Peregrine for the Army.
