The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's Part 6

"Oh, are you going to the post? Look here, young 'un, just call in at Splicer's about my bat, will you? thanks awfully!" said one.

Another wanted him to buy a sixpenny novel at the library; a third commissioned him to invest threepence in "mixed sweets, chiefly peppermint;" and a fourth to call at Grounding, the naturalist's, with a dead white mouse which the owner wanted stuffed.

After this, Stephen--already becoming a little more knowing--stuffed the letter in his pocket, and took care, if ever he pa.s.sed any one, not to look as if he was going anywhere, for fear of being entrusted with a further mission.

He discharged all his errands to the best of his ability, including that relating to the dead mouse, which he had great difficulty in rescuing from the clutches of a hungry dog on the way down, and then returned with Paul's raisins in one pocket, the mixed sweets in another, the book in another, and the other boy's bat over his shoulder.

Paul was awaiting him at the gate of Saint Dominic's.

"Got them?" he shouted out, when Stephen was still twenty yards off.

Stephen nodded.

"How much?" inquired Paul.

"Eighteenpence."

"You duffer! I didn't mean them--pudding raisins I meant, about sixpence. I say, you'd better take them back, hadn't you?"

This was grat.i.tude! "I can't now," said Stephen.

"I've got to get somebody's tea ready--I say, where's his study?"

"Whose? Loman's? Oh, it's about the eighth on the right in the third pa.s.sage; next to the one with the kicks on it. What a young m.u.f.f you are to get this kind of raisin! I say, you'd have plenty of time to change them."

"I really wouldn't," said Stephen, hurrying off, and perhaps guessing that before he met Mr Paul again the raisins would be past changing.

The boy to whom belonged the mixed sweets was no more grateful than Paul had been.

"You've chosen the very ones I hate," he said, surveying the selection with a look of disgust.

"You said peppermint," said Stephen.

"But I didn't say green, beastly things!" grumbled the other. "Here, you can have one of them, it's sure to make you sick!"

Stephen said "Thank you," and went off to deliver up the bat.

"What a time you've been!" was all the thanks he got in that quarter.

"Why couldn't you come straight back with it?"

This was gratifying. Stephen was learning at least one lesson that afternoon--that a f.a.g, if he ever expects to be thanked for anything he does, is greatly mistaken. He went off in a highly injured frame of mind to Loman's study.

Master Paul's directions might have been more explicit--"The eighth door on the right; next to the one with the kicks." Now, as it happened, the door with the kicks on it was itself the eighth door on the right, with a study on either side of it, and which of these two was Loman's Stephen could not by the unaided light of nature determine. He peeped into Number 7; it was empty.

"Perhaps he's cut his name on the door," thought Stephen.

He might have done so, but as there were about fifty different letters cut on the door, he was not much wiser for that.

"I'd better look and see if his name is on his collars," Stephen next reflected, remembering with what care his mother had marked his own linen.

He opened a drawer; it was full of jam-pots. At that moment the door opened behind him, and the next thing Stephen was conscious of was that he was half-stunned with a terrific box on the ears.

"Take that, you young thief!" said the indignant owner of the study; "I'll teach you to stick your finger in my jam. What do you mean by it?" and a cuff served as a comma between each sentence.

"I really didn't--I only wanted--I was looking for--"

"That'll do; don't tell lies as well as steal; get away."

"I never stole anything!" began Stephen, whose confusion was being rapidly followed by indignation at this unjust suspicion.

"That'll do. A little boy like you shouldn't practise cheating. Off you go! If I catch you again I'll take you to the Doctor."

In vain Stephen, now utterly indignant, and burning with a sense of injustice, protested his innocence. He could not get a hearing, and presently found himself out in the pa.s.sage, the most miserable boy in all Saint Dominic's.

He wandered disconsolately along the corridor, trying hard to keep down his tears, and determined to beg and beseech his brother to let him return home that very evening, when Loman and a friend confronted him.

"Hullo, I say, is tea ready?" demanded the former.

"No," said Stephen, half choking.

"Why ever not, when I told you?"

Stephen looked at him, and tried to speak, and then finally burst into tears.

"Here's an oddity for you! Why, what's the row, youngster?"

"Nothing," stammered Stephen.

"That's a queer thing to howl at. If you were weeping because you hadn't made my tea, I could understand it. Come along, I'll show you how to do it this time, young greenhorn."

Stephen accompanied him mechanically, and was ushered into the study on the other side of the door with the kicks to that in which he had been so grievously wronged.

He watched Loman prepare the meal, and was then allowed to depart, with orders to be in the way, in case he should be wanted.

Poor Stephen! Things were going from bad to worse, and life was already a burden to him. And besides--that exam paper! It now suddenly dawned upon him. Here it was nearly seven o'clock, and by ten to-morrow he was to deliver it up to Dr Senior!

How _ever_ was he to get through it? He darted off to Oliver's study.

It was empty, and he sat down, and drawing out the paper, made a dash at the first question.

The answer _wouldn't_ come! Pa.r.s.e "Oh, ah!"

"Oh" is an interjection agreeing with "ah."

"Ah" is an interjection agreeing with "oh." It wouldn't do. He must try again.

"Why," cried the voice of Wraysford, half an hour later, "here's a picture of industry for you, Greenfield. That young brother of yours is beginning well!"

Stephen hurriedly caught up his papers for fear any one should catch a glimpse of the hopeless attempts at answers which he had written. He was greatly tempted to ask Oliver about "Mr Finis," only he had promised not to get any help.