The Wonder Part 25

The fourth was the Rev. Philip Steven, a co-opted member of the Committee, head master of the Ailesworth Grammar School. Steven was a tall, thin man with bent shoulders, and he had a long, thin face, the length of which was exaggerated by his square brown beard. He wore gold-mounted spectacles which, owing to his habit of dropping his head, always needed adjustment whenever he looked up. The movement of lifting his head and raising his hand to his gla.s.ses had become so closely a.s.sociated, that his hand went up even when there was no apparent need for the action. Steven spoke of himself as a Broad Churchman, and in his speech on prize-day he never omitted some allusion to the necessity for "marching" or "keeping step" with the times. But Elmer was inclined to laugh at this a.s.sumption of modernity. "Steven," he said, on one occasion, "marks time and thinks he is keeping step. And every now and then he runs a little to catch up." The point of Elmer's satire lay in the fact that Steven was usually to be seen either walking very slowly, head down, lost in abstraction; or--when aroused to a sense of present necessity--going with long-strides as if intent on catching up with the times without further delay. Very often, too, he might be seen running across the school playground, his hand up to those elusive gla.s.ses of his. "There goes Mr. Steven, catching up with the times," had become an accepted phrase.

There were other members of the Education Committee, notably Mrs. Philip Steven, but they were subordinate. If those four striking figures were unanimous, no other member would have dreamed of expressing a contrary opinion. But up to this time they had not yet been agreed upon any important line of action.

This four, Challis and Crashaw met in the morning-room of Challis Court one Thursday afternoon in November. Elmer had brought a stenographer with him for scientific purposes.

"Well," said Challis, when they were all a.s.sembled. "The--the subject--I mean, Victor Stott is in the library. Shall we adjourn?" Challis had not felt so nervous since the morning before he had sat for honours in the Cambridge Senate House.

In the library they found a small child, reading.

V

He did not look up when the procession entered, nor did he remove his cricket cap. He was in his usual place at the centre table.

Challis found chairs for the Committee, and the members ranged themselves round the opposite side of the table. Curiously, the effect produced was that of a cla.s.s brought up for a viva voce examination, and when the Wonder raised his eyes and glanced deliberately down the line of his judges, this effect was heightened. There was an audible fidgeting, a creak of chairs, an indication of small embarra.s.sments.

"Her--um!" Deane Elmer cleared his throat with noisy vigour; looked at the Wonder, met his eyes and looked hastily away again; "Hm!--her--rum!"

he repeated, and then he turned to Challis. "So this little fellow has never been to school?" he said.

Challis frowned heavily. He looked exceedingly uncomfortable and unhappy. He was conscious that he could take neither side in this controversy--that he was in sympathy with no one of the seven other persons who were seated in his library.

He shook his head impatiently in answer to Sir Deane Elmer's question, and the chairman turned to the Rev. Philip Steven, who was gazing intently at the pattern of the carpet.

"I think, Steven," said Elmer, "that your large experience will probably prompt you to a more efficient examination than we could conduct. Will you initiate the inquiry?"

Steven raised his head slightly, put a readjusting hand up to his gla.s.ses, and then looked sternly at the Wonder over the top of them.

Even the sixth form quailed when the head master a.s.sumed this expression, but the small child at the table was gazing out of the window.

Doubtless Steven was slightly embarra.s.sed by the detachment of the examinee, and blundered. "What is the square root of 226?" he asked--he probably intended to say 225.

"1503329--to five places," replied the Wonder.

Steven started. Neither he nor any other member of the Committee was capable of checking that answer without resort to pencil and paper.

"Dear me!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Squire Standing.

Elmer scratched the superabundance of his purple jowl, and looked at Challis, who thrust his hands into his pockets and stared at the ceiling.

Crashaw leaned forward and clasped his hands together. He was biding his time.

"Mayor" Purvis alone seemed unmoved. "What's that book he's got open in front of him?" he asked.

"May I see?" interposed Challis hurriedly, and he rose from his chair, picked up the book in question, glanced at it for a moment, and then handed it to the grocer. The book was Van Vloten's Dutch text and Latin translation of Spinoza's Short Treatise.

The grocer turned to the t.i.tle-page. "Ad--beany--d.i.c.k--ti--de--Spy--nozer,"

he read aloud and then: "What's it all about, Mr. Challis?" he asked.

"German or something, I take it?"

"In any case it has nothing to do with elementary arithmetic," replied Challis curtly, "Mr. Steven will set your mind at ease on that point."

"Certainly, certainly," murmured Steven.

Grocer Purvis closed the book carefully and replaced it on the desk.

"What does half a stone o' loaf sugar at two-three-farthings come to?"

he asked.

The Wonder shook his head. He did not understand the grocer's phraseology.

"What is seven times two and three quarters?" translated Challis.

"1925," answered the Wonder.

"What's that in shillin's?" asked Purvis.

"160416."

"Wrong!" returned the grocer triumphantly.

"Er--excuse me, Mr. Purvis," interposed Steven, "I think not.

The--the--er--examinee has given the correct mathematical answer to five places of decimals--that is, so far as I can check him mentally."

"Well, it seems to me," persisted the grocer, "as he's gone a long way round to answer a simple question what any fifth-standard child could do in his head. I'll give him another."

"Cast it in another form," put in the chairman. "Give it as a multiplication sum."

Purvis tucked his fingers carefully into his waistcoat pockets. "I put the question, Mr. Chairman," he said, "as it'll be put to the youngster when he has to tot up a bill. That seems to be a sound and practical form for such questions to be put in."

Challis sighed impatiently. "I thought Mr. Steven had been delegated to conduct the first part of the examination," he said. "It seems to me that we are wasting a lot of time."

Elmer nodded. "Will you go on, Mr. Steven?" he said.

Challis was ashamed for his compeers. "What children we are," he thought.

Steven got to work again with various arithmetical questions, which were answered instantly, and then he made a sudden leap and asked: "What is the binomial theorem?"

"A formula for writing down the coefficient of any stated term in the expansion of any stated power of a given binomial," replied the Wonder.

Elmer blew out his cheeks and looked at Challis, but met the gaze of Mr.

Steven, who adjusted his gla.s.ses and said, "I am satisfied under this head."

"It's all beyond me," remarked Squire Standing frankly.

"I think, Mr. Chairman, that we've had enough theoretical arithmetic,"

said Purvis. "There's a few practical questions I'd like to put."

"No more arithmetic, then," a.s.sented Elmer, and Crashaw exchanged a glance of understanding with the grocer.

"Now, how old was our Lord when He began His ministry?" asked the grocer.