To Jack Gordon Hart Minor and Smith were behind-hand with their sums. It was Hart Minor's first term: Smith had already been one term at school. They were in the fourth division at St. James's. A certain number of sums in short division had to be finished. Hart Minor and Smith got up early to finish these sums before breakfast, which was at half-past seven. Hart Minor divided slowly, and Smith reckoned quickly. Smith finished his sums with ease. When half-past seven struck, Hart Minor had finished four of them and there was still a fifth left: 3888 had to be divided by 36; short division had to be employed. Hart Minor was busily trying to divide 3888 by 4 and by 9; he had got as far as saying, "Four's into 38 will go six times and two over; four's into twenty-eight go seven times; four's into eight go twice." He was beginning to divide 672 by 9, an impossible task, when the breakfast bell rang, and Smith said to him: "Come on!"
"I can't," said Hart Minor, "I haven't finished my sum."
Smith glanced at his page and said: "Oh that's all right, don't you see? The answer's 108."
Hart Minor wrote down 108 and put a large R next to the sum, which meant Right.
The boys went in to breakfast. After breakfast they returned to the fourth division schoolroom, where they were to be instructed in arithmetic for an hour by Mr. Whitehead. Mr. Whitehead called for the sums. He glanced through Smith's and found them correct, and then through Hart Minor's. His attention was arrested by the last division.
"What's this?" he demanded. "Four's into thirty-eight don't go six times. You've got the right answer and the wrong working. What does this mean?" And Mr. Whitehead bit his knuckles savagely. "Somebody," he said, "has been helping you."
Hart Minor owned that he had received help from Smith. Mr. Whitehead shook him violently, and said, "Do you know what this means?"
Hart Minor had no sort of idea as to the inner significance of his act, except that he had finished his sums.
"It means," said Mr. Whitehead, "that you're a cheat and a thief: you've been stealing marks. For the present you can stand on the stool of penitence and I'll see what is to be done with you later."
The stool of penitence was a high, three-cornered stool, very narrow at the top. When boys in this division misbehaved themselves they had to stand on it during the rest of the lesson in the middle of the room.
Hart Minor fetched the stool of penitence and climbed up on it. It wobbled horribly.
After the lesson, which was punctuated throughout by Mr. Whitehead with bitter comments on the enormity of theft, the boys went to chapel. Smith and Hart were in the choir: they wore white surplices which were put on in the vestry. Hart Minor, who knew that he was in for a terrific row of some kind, thought he observed something unusual in the conduct of the masters who were assembled in the vestry. They were all tittering. Mr. Whitehead seemed to be convulsed with uncontrollable laughter. The choir walked up the aisle. Hart Minor noticed that all the boys in the school, and the servants who sat behind them, and the master's wife who sat in front, and the organist who played the harmonium, were all staring at him with unwonted interest; the boys were nudging each other: he could not understand why.
When the service, which lasted twenty minutes, was over, and the boys came out of chapel, Hart Minor was the centre of a jeering crowd of boys. He asked Smith what the cause of this was, and Smith confessed to him that before going into chapel Mr. Whitehead had pinned on his back a large sheet of paper with "Cheat" written on it, and had only removed it just before the procession walked up the aisle, hence the interest aroused. But, contrary to his expectation, nothing further occurred; none of the masters alluded to his misdemeanour, and Hart Minor almost thought that the incident was closed--almost, and yet really not at all; he tried to delude himself into thinking the affair would blow over, but all the while at the bottom of his heart sat a horrible misgiving.
Every Monday there was in this school what was called "reading over."
