Page:The Bet and Other Stories.djvu/46

34 whom, to use the students' slang, "I give a plough" or "haul them through." Those of them who fail because of stupidity or illness, usually bear their cross in patience and do not bargain with me; only sanguine temperaments, "open natures," bargain with me and come to my house, people whose appetite is spoiled or who are prevented from going regularly to the opera by a delay in their examinations. With the first I am over-indulgent; the second kind I keep on the run for a year.

"Sit down," I say to my guest. "What was it you wished to say?"

"Forgive me for troubling you. Professor . . ." he begins, stammering and never looking me in the face. "I would not venture to trouble you unless . . . I was up for my examination before you for the fifth time . . . and I failed. I implore you to be kind, and give me a 'satis,' because . . ."

The defence which all idlers make of themselves is always the same. They have passed in every other subject with distinction, and failed only in mine, which is all the more strange because they had always studied my subject most diligently and know it thoroughly. They failed through some inconceivable misunderstanding.

"Forgive me, my friend," I say to my guest. "But I can't give you a 'satis'—impossible. Go and read your lectures again, and then come. Then we'll see.