We were working, therefore, under forced draught, and it was distinctly annoying to see the wretched Bradshaw lounging in our only armchair with one of Rider Haggard’s best, seemingly quite unmoved at the prospect of Euripides examinations. For all he appeared to care, Euripides might never have written a line in his life.
Kendal voiced the opinion of the meeting.
“Bradshaw, you worm,” he said. “Aren’t you going to do any work?”
“Think not. What’s the good? Can’t get up a whole play of Euripides in two hours.”
“Mellish’ll give you beans.”
“Let him.”
“You’ll get a jolly bad report.”
“Shan’t get a report at all. I always intercept it before my guardian can get it. He never says anything.”
“Mellish’ll probably run you in to the Old Man,” said White, the fourth occupant of the study.
Bradshaw turned on us with a wearied air.
“Oh, do give us a rest,” he said. “Here you are just going to do a most important exam, and you sit jawing away as if you were paid for it. Oh, I say, by the way, who’s setting the paper tomorrow?”
“Mellish, of course,” said White.
“No, he isn’t,” I said. “Shows what a lot you know about it. Mellish is setting the Livy paper.”
“Then, who’s doing this one?” asked Bradshaw.
“Yorke.”
Yorke was the master of the Upper Fifth. He generally set one of the upper fourth book-papers.
“Certain?” said Bradshaw.
“Absolutely.”
“Thanks. That’s all I wanted to know. By Jove, I advise you chaps to read this. It’s grand. Shall I read out this bit about a fight?”
“No!” we shouted virtuously, all together, though we were dying to hear it, and we turned once more to the loathsome inanities of the second chorus. If we had been doing Homer, we should have felt more in touch with Bradshaw. There’s a good deal of similarity, when you come to compare them, between Homer and Haggard. They both deal largely in bloodshed, for instance. As events proved, the Euripides paper, like many things which seem formidable at a distance, was not nearly so bad as I had expected. I did a fair-to-moderate paper, and Kendal and White both seemed satisfied with themselves. Bradshaw confessed without emotion that he had only attempted the last half of the last question, and on being pressed for further information, merely laughed mysteriously, and said vaguely that it would be all right.
It now became plain that he had something up his sleeve. We expressed a unanimous desire to know what it was.
“You might tell a chap,” I said.
“Out with it, Bradshaw, or we’ll lynch you,” added Kendal.
Bradshaw, however, was not to be drawn. Much of his success in the paths of crime, both at school and afterwards, was due to his secretive habits. He never permitted accomplices.
On the following Wednesday the marks were read out. Out of a possible hundred I had obtained sixty—which pleased me very much indeed—White, fifty-five, Kendal, sixty-one. The unspeakable Bradshaw’s net total was four.
Mellish always read out bad marks in a hushed voice, expressive of disgust and horror, but four percent was too much for him. He shouted it, and the form yelled applause, until Ponsonby came in from the Upper Fifth next door with Mr. Yorke’s compliments, “and would we recollect that his form were trying to do an examination.”
When order had been restored, Mellish settled his glasses and glared through them at Bradshaw, who, it may be remarked, had not turned a hair.
“Bradshaw,” he said, “how do you explain this?”
It was merely a sighting shot, so to speak. Nobody was ever expected to answer the question. Bradshaw, however, proved himself the exception to the rule.
“I can explain, sir,” he said, “if I may speak to you privately afterwards.”
I have seldom seen anyone so astonished as Mellish was at these words. In the whole course of his professional experience, he had never met with a parallel case. It was hard on the poor man not to be allowed to speak his mind about a matter of four percent in a book-paper, but what could he do? He could not proceed with his denunciation, for if Bradshaw’s explanation turned out a sufficient excuse, he would have to withdraw it all again, and vast stores of golden eloquence would be wasted. But, then, if he bottled up what he wished to say altogether, it might do him a serious internal injury. At last he hit on a compromise. He said, “Very well, Bradshaw, I will hear what you have to say,” and then sprang, like the cat in the poem, “all claws,” upon an unfortunate individual who had scored twenty-nine, and who had been congratulating himself that Bradshaw’s failings would act as a sort of lightning-conductor to him. Bradshaw worked off his explanation in under five minutes. I tried to stay behind to listen, on the pretext of wanting to tidy up my desk, but was ejected by request. Bradshaw explained that his statement was private.
After a time they came out together like long-lost brothers, Mellish with his hand on Bradshaw’s shoulder. It was some small comfort to me to remember that Bradshaw had the greatest dislike to this sort of thing.
It was evident that Bradshaw, able exponent of the art of fiction that he was, must have excelled himself on this occasion. I tried to get the story out of him in the study that evening. White and Kendal assisted. We tried persuasion first. That having failed, we tried taunts. Then we tried kindness. Kendal sat on his legs, and I sat on his head, and White twisted his arm. I think that we should have extracted something soon, either his arm from its socket or a full confession, but we were interrupted. The door flew open, and Prater (the same being our Housemaster, and rather a good sort) appeared.
“Now then, now then,”
