"Well, Kennedy," Claremont would say, "you certainly know your words very well, but I can't bear the way you say them. Five out of twenty. Mansell, you evidently have made little attempt to learn your repetition at all, but I love your fervour. One so rarely finds anyone really affected by the passion of poetry. Fifteen out of twenty." During his two years in the Lower Fifth Mansell never once spent more than five minutes learning his "rep," yet on no occasion did he get less than twelve out of twenty. A bare outline was required, a loud voice supplied the rest. In this form it was that Gordon first began to crib. He did not do it to get marks. He merely wished to avoid being "bottled." Some headmasters, and the writers to _The Boy's Own Paper_, draw lurid pictures of the bully who by cribbing steals the prize from the poor innocent who looks up every word in a big Liddell and Scott; but such people don't exist. No one ever cribbed in order to get a prize: they crib from mere slackness. Mansell's exam. prize in IV. A is about the only instance of a prize won by cribbing. Besides, cribbing is an art. Ruddock, for instance, when he used to go on to translate, was accustomed to take up his Vergil in one hand and his Bohn in the other. "What is that other book, Ruddock?" Claremont asked once. "Some notes, sir," was the perfectly truthful answer. Ruddock was, moreover, an altruist; he always worked for the good of his fellow-men. One day, when Mansell was bungling most abominably with his Euripides, he flung his Bohn along the desk, Mansell picked it up, propped it in front of him and read it off. Claremont never noticed. This was the start of a great system of combination. Everyone at the beginning of the term paid twopence to the general account with which Ruddock bought some _Short Steps to Accurate Translations_. As each person went on to translate, the book was passed to him and he read straight out of it. The translating was, in consequence, always of a remarkably high standard. Claremont never understood why examinations always proved the signal for a general collapse. History, however, was a subject that had long been a worry to the form. Dates are irrevocable facts and cannot be altered, they must be learnt. At one time, when Claremont said, "Shut your book. I will ask a few questions," everyone shut their Latin grammars loudly and kept their history books open; but this was rather too obvious a ruse; Claremont began to spot it. Something had to be done. It would be an insult to expect any member of the form to prepare a lesson. It was Gordon who finally devised a plan. "Please, sir," he said one day, "don't you think we should find history much more interesting if we could bring in maps." "Well, perhaps it would," said Claremont sleepily. "I am sure the form is very much indebted to you for your kind thought. Anyone who wants to, may bring in a map."