is book of
answers was beside him. He did not write down what the thing was, but with
one eye at the microscope he began making a hasty sketch of it. His mind
was full of this grotesque puzzle in ethics that had suddenly been sprung
upon him. Should he identify it? or should he leave this question
unanswered? In that case Wedderburn would probably come out first in the
second result. How could he tell now whether he might not have identified
the thing without shifting it? It was possible that Wedderburn had failed
to recognise it, of course. Suppose Wedderburn too had shifted the slide?
He looked up at the clock. There were fifteen minutes in which to make up
his mind. He gathered up his book of answers and the coloured pencils he
used in illustrating his replies and walked back to his seat.

He read through his manuscript, and then sat thinking and gnawing his
knuckle. It would look queer now if he owned up. He _must_ beat
Wedderburn. He forgot the examples of those starry gentlemen, John Burns
and Bradlaugh. Besides, he reflected, the glimpse of the rest of the slip
he had had was, after all, quite accidental, forced upon him by chance, a
kind of providential revelation rather than an unfair advantage. It was
not nearly so dishonest to avail himself of that as it was of Broome, who
believed in the efficacy of prayer, to pray daily for a first-class. "Five
minutes more," said the demonstrator, folding up his paper and becoming
observant. Hill watched the clock hands until two minutes remained; then
he opened the book of answers, and, with hot ears and an affectation of
ease, gave his drawing of the lenticel its name.

When the second pass list appeared, the previous positions of Wedderburn
and Hill were reversed, and the spectacled girl in green, who knew the
demonstrator in private life (where he was practically human), said that
in the result of the two examinations taken together Hill had the
advantage of a mark--167 to 166 out of a possible 200. Everyone admired
Hill in a way, though the suspicion of "mugging" clung to him. But Hill
was to find congratulations and Miss Haysman's enhanced opinion of him,
and even the decided decline in the crest of Wedderburn, tainted by an
unhappy memory. He felt a remarkable access of energy at first, and the
note of a democracy marching to triumph returned to his debating-society
speeches; he worked at his comparative anatomy with tremendous zeal and
effect, and he went on with h