School Stories

excitement seem but feeble makeshifts after it. I have, in the course of a career of sustained usefulness to the human race, had my share of thrills. I have asked a strong and busy porter, at Paddington, when the Brighton train started. I have gone for the broad jump record in trying to avoid a motorcar. I have played Spillikins and Ping-Pong. But never again have I felt the excitement that used to wander athwart my moral backbone when I was put on to translate a passage containing a notorious crux and seventeen doubtful readings, with only that innate genius, which is the wonder of the civilized world, to pull me through. And what a glow of pride one feels when it is all over; when one has made a glorious, golden guess at the crux, and trampled the doubtful readings under foot with inspired ease. It is like a day at the seaside.

Work is bad enough, but Examinations are worse, especially the Board Examinations. By doing from ten to twenty minutes prep every night, the compleat slacker could get through most of the term with average success. Then came the Examinations. The dabbler in unseen translations found himself caught as in a snare. Gone was the peaceful security in which he had lulled to rest all the well-meant efforts of his guardian angel to rouse him to a sense of his duties. There, right in front of him, yawned the abyss of Retribution.

Alas! poor slacker. I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. Where be his gibes now? How is he to cope with the fiendish ingenuity of the examiners? How is he to master the contents of a book of Thucydides in a couple of days? It is a fearsome problem. Perhaps he will get up in the small hours and work by candlelight from two till eight o’clock. In this case he will start his day a mental and physical wreck. Perhaps he will try to work and be led away by the love of light reading.

In any case he will fail to obtain enough marks to satisfy the examiners, though whether examiners ever are satisfied, except by Harry the hero of the school story (Every Lad’s Library, uniform edition, 2s. 6d.), is rather a doubtful question.

In such straits, matters resolve themselves into a sort of drama with three characters. We will call our hero Smith.

Scene: a Study

Dramatis Personae: Smith, Conscience, Mephistopheles

	Enter Smith down centre.
	He seats himself at table and opens a Thucydides.
	Enter Conscience through ceiling R., Mephistopheles through floor L.
Conscience	With a kindly smile. Precisely what I was about to remark, my dear lad. A little Thucydides would be a very good thing. Thucydides, as you doubtless know, was a very famous Athenian historian. Date?
Smith	Er⁠—um⁠—let me see.
Mephistopheles	Aside. Look in the Introduction and pretend you did it by accident.
Smith	Having done so. 431 BC. circ.
	Conscience wipes away a tear.
Conscience	Thucydides made himself a thorough master of the concisest of styles.
Mephistopheles	And in doing so became infernally obscure. Excuse shop.
Smith	Gloomily. Hum!
Mephistopheles	Sneeringly. Ha!
	Long pause.
Conscience	Gently. Do you not think, my dear lad, that you had better begin? Time and tide, as you are aware, wait for no man. And⁠—
Smith	Yes?
Conscience	Well, you know, that examination tomorrow.
Smith	Yes?
Conscience	You have not, I fear, a very firm grasp of the subject. However, if you work hard till eleven⁠—
Smith	Gloomily. Hum! Three hours!
Mephistopheles	Cheerily. Exactly so. Three hours. A little more if anything. By the way, excuse me asking, but have you prepared the subject thoroughly during the term?
Smith	My dear sir! Of course!
Conscience	Reprovingly. ???!!??!
Smith	Well, perhaps, not quite so much as I might have done. Such a lot of things to do this term. Cricket, for instance.
Mephistopheles	Rather. Talking of cricket, you seemed to be shaping rather well last Saturday. I had just run up on business, and someone told me you made eighty not out. Get your century all right?
Smith	Brightening at the recollection. Just a bit⁠—117 not out. I hit⁠—but perhaps you’ve heard?
Mephistopheles	Not at all, not at all. Let’s hear all about it.
	Conscience seeks to interpose, but is prevented by Mephistopheles, who eggs Smith on to talk cricket for over an hour.
Conscience	At last; in an acid voice. That is a history of the Peloponnesian war by Thucydides on the table in front of you. I thought I would mention it, in case you had forgotten.
Smith	Great Scott, yes! Here, I say, I must start.
Conscience	Hear! Hear!
Mephistopheles	Insinuatingly. One moment. Did you say you had prepared this book during the term? Afraid I’m a little hard of hearing. Eh, what?
Smith	Well⁠—er no, I have not. Have you ever played billiards with a walking-stick and five balls?
Mephistopheles	Quite so, quite so. I quite understand. Don’t you distress yourself, old chap. You obviously can’t get through a whole book of Thucydides in under two hours, can you?
Conscience	Severely. He might, by attentive application to study, master a considerable portion of the historian’s chef d’oeuvre in that time.
Mephistopheles	Yes, and find that not one of the passages he had prepared was set in the paper.
Conscience	At the least, he would, if he were to pursue the course which I have indicated, greatly benefit his mind.
Mephistopheles	Gives a short, derisive laugh.
	Long pause.
Mephistopheles	Looking towards bookshelf. Hullo, you’ve got a decent lot of books, pommy word you have. Rodney Stone, Vice Versa, Many Cargoes. Ripping. Ever read Many Cargoes?
Conscience	Glancing at his watch. I am sorry, but I must really go now. I will see you some other day.
	Exit sorrowfully.
Mephistopheles	Well, thank goodness he’s gone. Never saw such a fearful old bore in my life. Can’t think why you let him hang on to you so.