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I thought they were fine. Is it true that you cheated when you won that Scripture-knowledge prize?" "Certainly not. My victory was the outcome of the most strenuous and unremitting efforts." "And how about this pessimism we hear of? Are you a pessimist, Bertie?" I could have told her that what was occurring in this house was rapidly making me one, but I said no, I wasn't. "That's right.
G.G. Simmons was an unpleasant, perky-looking stripling, mostly front teeth and spectacles, but I gave him a big hand. We Scripture-knowledge sharks stick together. Gussie, I was sorry to see, didn't like him. There was in his manner, as he regarded G.G. Simmons, none of the chumminess which had marked it during his interview with P.K. Purvis or, in a somewhat lesser degree, with R.V. Smethurst.
But, of course, Bertie frankly cheated. He succeeded in scrounging that Scripture-knowledge trophy over the heads of better men by means of some of the rawest and most brazen swindling methods ever witnessed even at a school where such things were common. If that man's pockets, as he entered the examination-room, were not stuffed to bursting-point with lists of the kings of Judah "
"Being a female, you wouldn't. You gentler sexes are like that. You pull off the rawest stuff without a pang. You pride yourselves on it. Look at Jael, the wife of Heber." "Where did you ever hear of Jael, the wife of Heber?" "Possibly you are not aware that I once won a Scripture-knowledge prize at school?" "Oh, yes. I remember Augustus mentioning it in his speech."
If you recollect, sir, he had already proclaimed himself suspicious of Master Simmons's bona fides, and he now proceeded to deliver a violent verbal attack upon the young gentleman, asserting that it was impossible for him to have won the Scripture-knowledge prize without systematic cheating on an impressive scale. He went so far as to suggest that Master Simmons was well known to the police."
He was cold and distant. "Well, G.G. Simmons." "Sir, yes, sir." "What do you mean sir, yes, sir? Dashed silly thing to say. So you've won the Scripture-knowledge prize, have you?" "Sir, yes, sir." "Yes," said Gussie, "you look just the sort of little tick who would. And yet," he said, pausing and eyeing the child keenly, "how are we to know that this has all been open and above board?
"Keep what up?" "This rot of being engaged to Gussie." "I certainly am." "Just to make Tuppy look silly." "Do you think he looks silly?" "I do." "So he ought to." I began to get the idea that I wasn't making real headway. I remember when I won that Scripture-knowledge prize, having to go into the facts about Balaam's ass.
I always applied myself, in reading the Scriptures, to let him know, as well as I could, the meaning of what I read; and he again, by his serious inquiries and questionings, made me, as I said before, a much better scholar in the Scripture-knowledge than I should ever have been by my own mere private reading.
I don't know when I've had a nastier shock. I had been going on the assumption that, now that they had stopped him making his speech, Gussie's fangs had been drawn, as you might say. To duck my head down and resume my edging toward the door was with me the work of a moment. "Bertie Wooster won the Scripture-knowledge prize at a kids' school we were at together, and you know what he's like.
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