The Madcap of the School Part 31

"What have you got there?"

"Did it come by the post?"

"Why, it's a fountain pen, isn't it?"

"Who sent it to you?"

"Did you buy it, then?"

"It looks a jolly nice one!"

"Is it full, or empty?"

"Don't talk all at once, children!" commanded Raymonde loftily. "I'll answer your questions in proper order, so just behave yourselves!

"1. It is a fountain pen, as anybody with half an eye could see!

"2. It came by the post.

"3. n.o.body sent it to me.

"4. I bought it.

"5. It is a jolly nice one.

"6. I have reason to believe it is empty. I'm going to fill it out of Fauvette's bottle."

"Cheek!" returned Fauvette, allowing her friend to help herself to the Swan ink, however. "What puzzles me, is how you managed to buy it."

"Your little head, Baby, is easily puzzled," smiled Raymonde serenely. "It's meant to wear fluffy curls, and not to engage itself in abstruse problems. I don't advise you to worry yourself over this, unless you can turn it to some account. If the Hornet should ask you for an original example, you might begin: 'Let A represent a fountain pen, and B my schoolmate, C standing for an unknown quant.i.ty----'"

Fauvette, at this point, placed her hand over her chum's mouth.

"Stop it!" she begged beseechingly. "If I get any of those wretched A B and C questions I'll collapse, and disgrace the Form. I've many weak points, but mathematics are absolutely my weakest of all. If you frighten me any more, I shan't have the courage to walk into the exam.

room. Do I look presentable? Are my hands clean? And is my hair decent?"

"You look so much more than presentable that anybody but a hardened brute of an examiner would be bowled over by you utterly and entirely."

"I'm sure he hasn't any feelings, so it's no use trying to work upon them," said Fauvette plaintively.

"Joking apart, Ray, where did you get that fountain pen?" asked Morvyth.

Raymonde's eyes twinkled.

"Little flower, could I tell you that, I'd tell you my heart's secret with it!"

she misquoted.

"But do tell me! I think you might!"

"The more you tease, the less you'll find out!"

The school bell put an end to the conversation, and the girls, with straightened faces, marched to their places in the big lecture hall.

The Reverend T. W. Beasley had taken full command of the examinations, and had introduced several innovations. On former occasions each Form had sat and written in its own room, but now desks had been placed for the whole school together, and were so arranged that the Forms sat alternately, a junior being sandwiched between each senior. The girls were hugely insulted. "He suspects we'll copy each other's papers!"

thought Raymonde, and flashed her indignation along to Aveline. She did not speak, but her expressive glance drew forth a reproof from the examiner. He cleared his throat.

"Any girl communicating either by speech or otherwise will be dismissed from the room!" he announced freezingly.

After that, the girls scarcely dared to look up from their papers.

They studied their questions and wrote away, some fast and furiously, and others with the desponding leisure of those having very little to put down. Mr. Beasley sat upon the platform, toying with his watch-chain, and keeping his eye upon the movements of the candidates.

Fauvette, finishing long before the others, ventured to raise her eyes as high as his boots, and let them rest there, marvelling at the size and thickness of the footgear, and congratulating herself that she could wear number three.

The morning wore itself slowly away. When the school compared notes at 12.30, the girls agreed that they had never in their lives before been given such an atrocious and detestable set of examination papers. The Sixth had fared as badly as the Fifth or the juniors, and even monitresses were loud in their complaints. Certain viva voces taken in the afternoon confirmed their ill opinion of their examiner.

"He glares at one till one's frightened out of one's wits!"

"And he hurries so--one hasn't time to answer!"

"And he takes things in quite a different way from what Gibbie does."

"He's no need to be sarcastic!"

"Sarcastic, did you say? I call him downright rude!"

"He evidently doesn't think much of our intellects!"

"Well, we don't think much of him, anyway!"

"I believe he uses pomatum on his hair," confided Fauvette in a shocked whisper.

"My dear, I believe it's bear's grease!" corrected Morvyth scornfully.

"This is the most painful week I've ever had to go through in all my life," bleated Aveline. "Even if I live through it--and that's doubtful--I shall be a nervous wreck. They'll have to send me for a rest cure during the holidays. I'm not accustomed to be cross-questioned as if I were a criminal in the dock!"

"It's a witness, child, you mean," amended Raymonde. "Criminals don't generally give evidence against themselves. But we understand you, all the same! For two pins I'd sham utter ignorance, and give him some very surprising answers. Yes, I would, if Gibbie or the b.u.mble didn't stick in the room the whole time! That's the worst of it. They'd know in a second that I was only having him on."

As the week progressed, the school considered itself more and more ill-used. The fact was that the Reverend T. W. Beasley was accustomed to university students, and could not focus his mind to the intellectual range of girls of thirteen to seventeen. Moreover, he was by nature a reformer. He liked to give others the benefit of his advice, and he had much to say in private to his sister upon the subject of her pupils' lessons and general management. Perhaps poor Miss Beasley had not expected quite so much criticism. She was accustomed, nevertheless, to defer to her brother's opinions, and she listened with due humility, though with much inward perturbation, while he laid down the law upon the education of women. Miss Gibbs, who was a born fighter, was inclined to argue--a disastrous policy, which so nearly ended in what are generally termed "words," that her Princ.i.p.al was obliged to ask her (privately) to allow the visitor to state his views uninterrupted.

The school was so taken up with the stern business on hand, that such delights as c.o.o.n concerts and theatricals were quite in the background. On Thursday afternoon, however, Veronica sought out Raymonde.

"I want your money for the Blinded Soldiers' Fund," she said. "I've given in ours, and so have the juniors. Miss Beasley says when she has it all she'll write a cheque for the amount, and send it to the secretary."

"But Miss Beasley has our money already," objected Raymonde. "Don't you remember? She said she wanted some change, and you came and asked me for it."

"So I did, and brought you back notes instead."

Raymonde shook her head.