After that, the girls scarcely dared to look up from their papers. They studied their questions and wrote away, some fast and furiously, and others with the desponding leisure of those having very little to put down. Mr. Beasley sat upon the platform, toying with his watch-chain, and keeping his eye upon the movements of the candidates. Fauvette, finishing long before the others, ventured to raise her eyes as high as his boots, and let them rest there, marvelling at the size and thickness of the footgear, and congratulating herself that she could wear number three. The morning wore itself slowly away. When the school compared notes at 12.30, the girls agreed that they had never in their lives before been given such an atrocious and detestable set of examination papers. The Sixth had fared as badly as the Fifth or the juniors, and even monitresses were loud in their complaints. Certain viva voces taken in the afternoon confirmed their ill opinion of their examiner. "He glares at one till one's frightened out of one's wits!" "And he hurries so--one hasn't time to answer!" "And he takes things in quite a different way from what Gibbie does." "He's no need to be sarcastic!" "Sarcastic, did you say? I call him downright rude!" "He evidently doesn't think much of our intellects!" "Well, we don't think much of him, anyway!" "I believe he uses pomatum on his hair," confided Fauvette in a shocked whisper. "My dear, I believe it's bear's grease!" corrected Morvyth scornfully. "This is the most painful week I've ever had to go through in all my life," bleated Aveline. "Even if I live through it--and that's doubtful--I shall be a nervous wreck. They'll have to send me for a rest cure during the holidays. I'm not accustomed to be cross-questioned as if I were a criminal in the dock!" "It's a witness, child, you mean," amended Raymonde. "Criminals don't generally give evidence against themselves. But we understand you, all the same! For two pins I'd sham utter ignorance, and give him some very surprising answers. Yes, I would, if Gibbie or the Bumble didn't stick in the room the whole time! That's the worst of it. They'd know in a second that I was only having him on."