; and so it was
exceedingly painful to see him stand there, as serene as a graven image,
and deliver himself of answers which were veritably miraculous for
stupidity and ignorance. All the compassion in me was aroused in his
behalf. I said to myself, when he comes to be examined again, he will be
flung over, of course; so it will be simple a harmless act of charity to
ease his fall as much as I can.

I took him aside, and found that he knew a little of Caesar's history;
and as he didn't know anything else, I went to work and drilled him like
a galley-slave on a certain line of stock questions concerning Caesar
which I knew would be used. 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.

Sleep! There was no more sleep for me for a week. My conscience tortured
me day and night. What I had done I had done purely through charity,
and only to ease the poor youth's fall--I never had dreamed of any such
preposterous result as the thing that had happened. I felt as guilty and
miserable as the creator of Frankenstein. Here was a wooden-head whom
I had put in the way of glittering promotions and prodigious
responsibilities, and but one thing could happen: he and his
responsibilities would all go to ruin together at the first opportunity.

The Crimean war had just broken out. Of course there had to be a war, I
said to myself: we couldn't have peace and give this donkey a chance to
die before he is found out. I waited for the earthquake. It came. And