"Anything for a change," grunted Uncle Bill. "I would cheerfully barter my entire form of imbeciles for one such youth. Look here: here is Atkinson, with the body of a camel and the mind of a hedgehog, who has been in my form for three years, and thinks that _De mortuis nil nisi bonum_ is a good ending for a hexameter. And that boy's mother came and called on me last term for an hour and a half, and confided to me that a boy of Lancelot's eager spirit and delicate organism might be inclined to overwork himself. I suppose this other boy's mother,--no, by the way, he hasn't got one,--his father is a big West-End doctor. The boy must have been left very much to himself in his childhood. He has never read a story-book in his life, and the cricket news is all that he reads in the papers." "Ah! is he a cricketer?" said Hanbury. "On paper: his real performances are very moderate. He will tell you the batting and bowling average of every first-class cricketer, though." "I don't think I have come across him in that line yet. I am glad he knows something. Well, I am off to my classroom." "What? At this hour of the afternoon?" "Yes; a meeting with a few young friends to discuss various points in the history of Samson. Four of them, including our young friend. Infernal rot, these Sunday preparations! The boys don't learn the work, and the average form-master can't explain it. They ought to be lumped together on Monday mornings for you to take, padre." "Quite right, my son," replied Uncle Bill. "Last term Kifford told his form that a phylactery was a kind of musical instrument. Well, cut along. Be gentle with them." It was a very hot afternoon in June. Hanbury found four discontented young persons awaiting him. He was wont to be lenient over the Scripture lesson, and a misplaced confidence in this fact had led the quartette to their downfall. "Now, let us get this business finished," he said briskly. "Are you all ready to be questioned?" The quartette expressed their readiness to endure the most searching cross-examination. "Very well, then. Sit down quickly and write out, in your own words, an account of the events in chapter thirteen." Four pens began to scratch, three vigorously, the last more diffidently. At the end of twenty minutes Mr. Hanbury called a halt. "Show it up," he said. Four inky manuscripts were laid before him. "Let me see," he continued. "Manoah--angel--sacrifice--Nazarite--yes." He glanced swiftly through the papers. "You can go, you three; but you, my young friend,"--he laid a heavy hand on Pip's unkempt head,--"will stay and talk to me." There was a hasty scuttling of feet, the banging of a door, and Pip was left alone with his master. Pip sighed and glanced out of the window, through which came the regular knock, knock, of innumerable bats against innumerable balls all along the long line of nets.