Page:My Life and Loves.djvu/103

Rh He would then turn out the light and go downstairs to his room. The oak-steps outside were worn in the middle and I had noticed that as one goes downstairs one treads on the very edge of each step.

One day "Shaddy" had maddened me by giving me one hundred lines of Vergil to learn by heart for some trifling peccadillo. That night, having provided myself with a cake of brown Windsor soap, I ran upstairs before the other boys and rubbed the soap freely on the edge of the two top steps, and then went on to undress.

When "Shaddy" put out the light and stepped down to the second step, there was a slip and then a great thud as he half slid, half fell to the bottom. In a moment, for my bed was nearest the door, I had sprung up, opened the door and made incoherent exclamations of sympathy as I helped him to get up.

"I've hurt my hip", he said, putting his hand on it. He couldn't account for his fall.

Grinning to myself as I went back, I rubbed the soap off the top step with my handkerchief and got into bed again, where I chuckled over the success of my stratagem. He had only got what he richly deserved, I said to myself.

At length the long term wore to its end; the Exam was held and after consulting Stackpole I was very sure of the second prize. "I believe", he said one day, "that you'd rather have the second prize than the first." "Indeed I would", I replied without thinking.

"Why?" he asked, "why?" I only just restrained myself in time or I'd have given him the true reason. "You'll come much nearer winning the Scholarship", he said at length, "than any of them guesses."

After the "Exams" came the athletic games, much more interesting than the beastly lessons. I won two