Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/101

 "But what does he do? Give us readings all the time?" asked Chips, one of whose weaknesses was the inane question.

"Give us readings? I like that!" cried Rawlinson, shouting with laughter. "It's the other way about, my good ass!"

"Do we have to read to him?"

"Every mother's son of us, before the whole school, and all the masters and the masters' wives!"

Chips went on asking questions, and Jan was only silent because he took a greater interest in the answers than he cared to show. The ordeal foreshadowed by Rawlinson was indeed rather alarming to a new boy with an accent which had already exposed him to some contumely. Yet his ear, sharpened by continual travesties of his speech, informed Jan that he was by no means the only boy in the school whose vowels were of eccentric breadth. It was a point on which he was not unduly sensitive, but, in his heart, only too willing to improve. He was, however, more on his guard against the outlandish word and the rustic idiom, which still cropped up in his conversation, but could not possibly affect his reading aloud. The result of the last reflection was that Jan subdued his fears, and rejoiced with Rawlinson at the prospect of a break in the term's work.

Their joy was enhanced by the obvious exasperation of Haigh, who scarcely concealed from his form his own opinion of Professor Abinger and the impending function. Many were his covert sneers, and loud his angry laughter, as he hit upon something for the Middle Remove to declaim piecemeal between them. The chosen passage was taken almost at random from one of Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales, which for some reason formed a standard work throughout the school, and which drew from Haigh