Boys -- Fiction; Cricket -- Fiction; Golf stories; Love stories; Schools -- Fiction; Young men -- Fiction
No, Miss Amelia could offer no suggestion. Her forte, it appeared, was
gentlemen's names. As a matter of fact, Pipette's name, as ascertained
by reference to Father by post that night, was Dorothea, and she had
been laughingly christened "Pipette" by her mother, because her father,
when summoned from the laboratory to view his newly born daughter, had
arrived holding a pipette in his hand.
So Pip and Pipette, much to their surprise and indignation, found
themselves addressed as Philip and Dorothea respectively, and as such
joined in the pursuit of knowledge in company with a motley crew of
Arthurs, Reginalds, Ermyntrudes, Winifreds, and the like. Surnames were
not employed in the school. If two children possessed the same Christian
name they were distinguished by the addition of any other sub-title they
happened to possess. Three unfortunate youths, for instance, were
addressed respectively as John Augustus, John William, and John Evelyn.
Things at Wentworth House School move in a stereotyped circle, and Pip
and Pipette soon became familiar with the curriculum. There were three
classes, they found. The First Class, the veterans, nearly old enough to
go to a preparatory school, dwelt in a stuffy apartment called "The
Study." Their learning was profound, for they were taught a mysterious
language called Latin, and another, even more mysterious, called
"Alzeber" (or something like that). The Second Class, conducted by Miss
Mary--formidable, but a good sort--in a corner of the schoolroom, did
not fly so high. They studied history and geography, and were addicted
to a fearsome form of parlour-game called "Mentalarithmetic," which
involved much shrieking of answers to highly impossible questions about
equally dividing seventeen apples among five boys.
Pip and Pipette occupied a humble position in the Third Class, where
they soon developed a fervent admiration for pretty Miss Amelia, who was
always smiling, always daintily dressed, and charmingly inaccurate and
casual.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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