ver met. Copy out your themes again the rest of you.

Fleming moved heavily out of his place and knelt between the two last
benches. The other boys bent over their theme-books and began to write.
A silence filled the classroom and Stephen, glancing timidly at Father
Arnall's dark face, saw that it was a little red from the wax he was in.

Was that a sin for Father Arnall to be in a wax or was he allowed to
get into a wax when the boys were idle because that made them study
better or was he only letting on to be in a wax? It was because he was
allowed, because a priest would know what a sin was and would not do
it. But if he did it one time by mistake what would he do to go to
confession? Perhaps he would go to confession to the minister. And if
the minister did it he would go to the rector: and the rector to the
provincial: and the provincial to the general of the jesuits. That was
called the order: and he had heard his father say that they were all
clever men. They could all have become high-up people in the world if
they had not become jesuits. And he wondered what Father Arnall and
Paddy Barrett would have become and what Mr McGlade and Mr Gleeson
would have become if they had not become jesuits. It was hard to think
what because you would have to think of them in a different way with
different coloured coats and trousers and with beards and moustaches
and different kinds of hats.

The door opened quietly and closed. A quick whisper ran through the
class: the prefect of studies. There was an instant of dead silence and
then the loud crack of a pandybat on the last desk. Stephen's heart
leapt up in fear.

--Any boys want flogging here, Father Arnall? cried the prefect of
studies. Any lazy idle loafers that want flogging in this class?

He came to the middle of the class and saw Fleming on his knees.

--Hoho! he cried. Who is this boy? Why is he on his knees? What is
your name, boy?

--Fleming, sir.

--Hoho, Fleming! An idler of course. I can see it in your eye. Why is
he on his knees, Father Arnall?

--He wrote a bad Latin theme, Father Arnall said, and he missed all
the questions in grammar.

--Of course he did! cried the prefect of studies, of course he did! A
born idler! I can see it in the corner of his eye.

He banged his pandybat down on the desk and cried:

--Up, Fleming! Up, my boy!

Fleming stood up slowly.

--Hold out! cried the prefect of studies.

Fleming held out his hand. The pandybat