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Dr Bewley's boys took their places along the forms quite an hour before noon, this punctuality having something to do with getting the best places, as they put it, though as the forms were in a line under the brick wall, which was low enough with their help for the shortest boy to see over, and the procession would pass close beneath it was hard to see any difference in the positions, or why the form reserved for the masters was any better than that at the extreme end.
There were several other desks in the big theatre which gave forth sounds and excited Tom's curiosity, for Dr Bewley's young gentlemen affected zoology even as far as young birds, though not to any very great extent, as, not being nightingales, they did not nourish in the dark.
To save money they kept no servant but Annie's young sister Monica came for an hour or so in the morning and an hour or so in the evening to help. But Monica had gone home long ago. It was a quarter to nine. Little Chandler had come home late for tea and, moreover, he had forgotten to bring Annie home the parcel of coffee from Bewley's. Of course she was in a bad humour and gave him short answers.
From Bewley's bog, with slaughter red, A wanderer hither drew; And oft he stopp'd and turn'd his head, As by fits the night-winds blew. For trampling round by Cheviot-edge Were heard the troopers keen; And frequent from the Whitelaw ridge The death-shot flash'd between," &c. &c.
It seems to me that old Bewley's head's getting soft, unless he's getting so hard-up that he's glad to take anybody's money to keep the old mathematical musical-box going, or else he wouldn't have taken a nigger to be put in the same rank with English gentlemen." "Here, you had better mind," said Burney. "Why?" snapped out Slegge. "Because you will have old Glyn hear you." "Pooh!
The next minute the trampled arena was in silence, and the Doctor, with his hands clasped behind him, was marching back alone towards his study, going so slowly that every one who had formed a portion of the little gathering had disappeared by the time he was half-way to the open French window. There was something peculiar about Dr Bewley's countenance as he slowly marched back.
But sometimes great discoveries come from very small things, and Wrench's Tom played his part in one of the little comedies of life, those of Terence and Plautus not being intended here. The examination-days were not looked forward to with joy by Dr Bewley's pupils; and, sad to say, Morris's days were liked least.
It was an excuse for a holiday, as eagerly seized upon by the townsfolk, old and young, as by the young gentlemen of Dr Bewley's establishment. But that was not all. The villages near Plymborough were many, and the people for miles round flocked into the place to see the procession and stop afterwards about the market-place to visit the exhibition of beasts and listen to the band.
In fact, the thoughts of Dr Bewley's pupils were greatly exercised about the trouble that hung like a cloud over the school; and in its dissipation Glyn Severn and Singh had a good deal to do, while, oddly enough, Wrench's cat played his part. Examination-Day was rather a frequent periodical affair at Dr Bewley's.
"We have got plenty of pepper in us when we want it; but that's where education comes in. I don't mean Dr Bewley's stuff and all we learn of the masters; but, as my dad says, the cultivation that makes a fellow an English gentleman. And do you know what that means?" "Oh, bother! No." "Then I'll tell you, Singhy. It's learning to be able to keep the stopper in the cruet till it's really wanted.
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