hat time.
However, as they only shared the fate of some three-fourths of the rest
of the form, this did not weigh heavily upon them.

In fact, the only occasions on which they cared about the matter were
the monthly examinations, when the Doctor came round to examine their
form, for one long, awful hour, in the work which they had done in the
preceding month. The second monthly examination came round soon after
Tom's fall, and it was with anything but lively anticipations that he
and the other lower-fourth boys came in to prayers on the morning of the
examination day.

Prayers and calling-over seemed twice as short as usual, and before they
could get construes of a tithe of the hard passages marked in the margin
of their books, they were all seated round, and the Doctor was standing
in the middle, talking in whispers to the master. Tom couldn't hear a
word which passed, and never lifted his eyes from his book; but he knew
by a sort of magnetic instinct that the Doctor's under-lip was coming
out, and his eye beginning to burn, and his gown getting gathered up
more and more tightly in his left hand. The suspense was agonizing, and
Tom knew that he was sure on such occasions to make an example of the
School-house boys. "If he would only begin," thought Tom, "I shouldn't
mind."

At last the whispering ceased, and the name which was called out was not
Brown. He looked up for a moment, but the Doctor's face was too awful;
Tom wouldn't have met his eye for all he was worth, and buried himself
in his book again.

The boy who was called up first was a clever, merry School-house boy,
one of their set; he was some connection of the Doctor's, and a great
favourite, and ran in and out of his house as he liked, and so was
selected for the first victim.

"Triste lupus stabulis," began the luckless youngster, and stammered
through some eight or ten lines.

"There, that will do," said the Doctor; "now construe."

On common occasions the boy could have construed the passage well enough
probably, but now his head was gone.

"Triste lupus, the sorrowful wolf," he began.

A shudder ran through the whole form, and the Doctor's wrath fairly
boiled over. He made three steps up to the construer, and gave him a
good box on the ear. The blow was not a hard one, but the boy was so
taken by surprise that he started back; the form caught the back of his
knees, and over he went on to the floor behind. There was a dead silence
over the who