“This, I presume, is a par-ergon on your part,” said King, as he dealt out the papers. “One final exhibition ere you are translated to loftier spheres? A last attack on the classics? It seems to confound you already.” Beetle studied the print with knit brows. “_I_ can’t make head or tail of it,” he murmured. “What does it mean?” “No, no!” said King, with scholastic coquetry. “We depend upon _you_ to give us the meaning. This is an examination, Beetle mine, not a guessing-competition. You will find your associates have no difficulty in--” Tulke left his place and laid the paper on the desk. King looked, read, and turned a ghastly green. “Stalky’s missing a heap,” thought Beetle. “Wonder how King’ll get out of it!” “There seems,” King began with a gulp, “a certain modicum of truth in our Beetle’s remark. I am--er--inclined to believe that the worthy Randall must have dropped this in ferule--if you know what that means. Beetle, you purport to be an editor. Perhaps you can enlighten the form as to formes.” “What, sir! Whose form! I don’t see that there’s any verb in this sentence at all, an’--an’--the Ode is all different, somehow.” “I was about to say, before you volunteered your criticism, that an accident must have befallen the paper in type, and that the printer reset it by the light of nature. No--” he held the thing at arm’s length--“our Randall is not an authority on Cicero or Horace.” “Rather mean to shove it off on Randall,” whispered Beetle to his neighbor. “King must ha’ been as screwed as an owl when he wrote it out.” “But we can amend the error by dictating it.” “No, sir.” The answer came pat from a dozen throats at once. “That cuts the time for the exam. Only two hours allowed, sir. ’Tisn’t fair. It’s a printed-paper exam. How’re we goin’ to be marked for it! It’s all Randall’s fault. It isn’t _our_ fault, anyhow. An exam.’s an exam.,” etc., etc. Naturally Mr. King considered this was an attempt to undermine his authority, and, instead of beginning dictation at once, delivered a lecture on the spirit in which examinations should be approached. As the storm subsided, Beetle fanned it afresh. “Eh? What? What was that you were saying to MacLagan?” “I only said I thought the papers ought to have been looked at before they were given out, sir.” “Hear, hear!” from a back bench. Mr. King wished to know whether Beetle took it upon himself personally to conduct the traditions of the school. His zeal for knowledge ate up another fifteen minutes, during which the prefects showed unmistakable signs of boredom. “Oh, it was a giddy time,” said Beetle, afterwards, in dismantled Number Five. “He gibbered a bit, and I kept him on the gibber, and then he dictated about a half of Dolabella & Co.” “Good old Dolabella! Friend of mine. Yes?” said Stalky, pensively.