Some days later a happy, and therefore not too likeable, King was explaining to the Reverend John in his own study how effort, zeal, scholarship, the humanities, and perhaps a little natural genius for teaching, could inspire even the mark-hunting minds of the young. His text was the result of his General Knowledge paper on the Augustans and _King Lear_. “Howell,” he said, “I was not surprised at. He _has_ intelligence. But, frankly, I did not expect young Corkran to burgeon. Almost one might believe he occasionally read a book.” “And McTurk too?” “Yes. He had somehow arrived at a rather just estimate of Swift’s lighter literary diversions. They _are_ contemptible. And in the ‘Lear’ questions--they were all attracted by Edgar’s character--Stalky had dug up something about Aubrey on Tom-a-Bedlams from some unknown source. Aubrey, of all people! I’m sure I only alluded to him once or twice.” “Stalky among the prophets of ‘English’! And he didn’t remember where he’d got it either?” “No. Boys are amazingly purblind and limited. But if they keep this up at the Army Prelim., it is conceivable the Class may not do itself discredit. I told them so.” “I congratulate you. Ours is the hardest calling in the world, with the least reward. By the way, who are they likely to send down to examine us?” “It rests between two, I fancy. Martlett--with me at Balliol--and Hume. _They_ wisely chose the Civil Service. Martlett has published a brochure on Minor Elizabethan Verse--journeyman work, of course--enthusiasms, but no grounding. Hume I heard of lately as having infected himself in Germany with some Transatlantic abominations about Shakespeare and Bacon. He was Sutton.” (The Head, by the way, was a Sutton man.) King returned to his examination-papers and read extracts from them, as mothers repeat the clever sayings of their babes. “Here’s old Taffy Howell, for instance--apropos to Diderot’s eulogy of Richardson. ‘The impassioned Diderot broke forth: “Richardson, thou singular genius!”’” It was the Reverend John who stopped himself, just in time, from breaking forth. He recalled that, some days ago, he had heard Stalky on the stairs of Number Five, hurling the boots of many fags at Howell’s door and bidding the “impassioned Diderot” within “break forth” at his peril. “Odd,” said he, gravely, when his pipe drew again. “Where did Diderot say that?” “I’ve forgotten for the moment. Taffy told me he’d picked it up in the course of holiday reading.” “Possibly. One never knows what heifers the young are ploughing with. Oh! How did Beetle do?” “The necessary dates and his handwriting defeated him, I’m glad to say. I cannot accuse myself of having missed any opportunity to castigate that boy’s inordinate and intolerable conceit. But I’m afraid it’s hopeless. I think I touched him somewhat, though, when I read Macaulay’s stock piece on Johnson. The others saw it at once.” “Yes, you told me about that at the time,” said the Reverend John, hurriedly.