If you'll believe me, he went through with
flying colours on examination day! He went through on that purely
superficial 'cram', and got compliments, too, while others, who knew a
thousand times more than he, got plucked. By some strangely lucky
accident--an accident not likely to happen twice in a century--he was
asked no question outside of the narrow limits of his drill.
It was stupefying. Well, although through his course I stood by him,
with something of the sentiment which a mother feels for a crippled
child; and he always saved himself--just by miracle, apparently.
Now of course the thing that would expose him and kill him at last was
mathematics. I resolved to make his death as easy as I could; so I
drilled him and crammed him, and crammed him and drilled him, just on the
line of questions which the examiner would be most likely to use, and
then launched him on his fate. Well, sir, try to conceive of the result:
to my consternation, he took the first prize! And with it he got a
perfect ovation in the way of compliments.
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