impaired benevolence; his flowing mane looked merely hoary, and his silvery voice had rather the staccato ring of steel.
He might almost have heard Haigh's opinion of him, he was so hard upon that form. The passage which Haigh had chosen was from a story called "The Mermaid," and the very first reader had to say "colossal mussel shells"—perhaps a better test of sobriety than of elocution—but Abinger would have it repeated until a drunken man could have done it better and the whole school was in a roar. Jan set his teeth at the back of the little knot upon the platform: he knew what he would do rather than make them laugh like that. But no one else made them laugh like that, though Buggins was asked whether he had been born within sound of Bow Bells, and created some amusement by the rich intonation of his denial. Gradually the little knot melted, and the bench below the platform filled up. Jan began reading over and over to himself the sentences that seemed certain to fall to him, as he was still doing when Carpenter left his side and lurched into the centre of the platform.
Now, poor Chips happened to have had a bad night with his tiresome malady, but on his speech it had the effect of a much more common disorder.
"The bleached bodes of bed," he began, valiantly, and was still making a conscientious pause after the subject of the sentence when a hand fell on his shoulder and the wretched Chips was looking Professor Abinger in the face.
"Have you got a cold?" inquired the professor, with his most sympathetic smile.
"Yes, sir," said Carpenter, too shy to explain the permanent character of the cold by giving it its proper name.
