urgatory. Every morning and every afternoon the inmates toiled away at
their monotonous work, sitting far removed from one another in the great
echoing hall, concentrated for the most part on [Greek: ei] and
[Greek: ean]. Every morning and every afternoon at a fatal moment
the swinging doors of the lower end of the Hall would clash together,
and the heavy tread of Dr. Brownjohn would be heard as he rolled up one
of the two aisles between the long desks. Every morning and every
afternoon Dr. Brownjohn would sit beside some boy to inspect his work;
and every morning and every afternoon hearts would beat the faster,
until Dr. Brownjohn had seized his victim, when the other boys would
simultaneously work with an almost lustful concentration.

Dr. Brownjohn was to Michael the personification of majesty, dominion,
ferocity and awe. He was huge of build, with a long grey beard to which
adhered stale morsels of food and the acrid scent of strong cigars. His
face was ploughed and fretted with indentations volcanic: scoriac
torrents flowed from his eyes, his forehead was seared and cleft with
frowning crevasses and wrinkled with chasms. His ordinary clothes were
stained with soup and rank with tobacco smoke, but over them he wore a
full and swishing gown of silk. When he spoke his voice rumbled in the
titanic deeps of his body, or if he were angry, it burst forth in an
appalling roar that shook the great hall. His method of approach was
enough to frighten anyone, for he would swing along up the aisle and
suddenly plunge into a seat beside the chosen boy, pushing him along the
form with his black bulk. He would seize the boy's pen and after
scratching his own head with the end of the holder would follow word by
word the liturgy of [Greek: ei] and [Greek: ean], tapping the
paper between the lines as he read each sentence, so that at the end of
his examination the page was peppered with dots of ink. Dr. Brownjohn,
although he had a voice like ten bulls, was himself very deaf and after
bellowing in a paralyzing bass he would always finish a remark with an
intoned 'um?' of tenor interrogation to exact assent or answer from his
terrified pupil. When due reverence was absent from Michael's worship of
[Greek: ei] and [Greek: ean] Dr. Brownjohn would frown at him and
roar and bellow and rumble and thunder and peal his execration and
contempt. Then suddenly his fury would be relieved by this eruption, and
he would affix his initials to the