before the eyes of all and sundry who liked to peer through the diamond panes of his class-room windows. Chips had to pass close by on his way out of school; but there were no spectators looking on outside, no old gentleman playing judge or executioner within. In response to an anxious question Chips was informed, by a youth who addressed him as "my good man," that even old Thrale didn't start flogging on the second day of a term. Instead of being relieved by the information, he only felt more depressed, having heard that really serious cases were not taken in this public way at all, but privately in the Head Master's sanctum. Chips went back to his house full of dire forebodings, and shut himself in his study after looking vainly into Jan's; and there he was still sitting when Jan's unmistakable slipshod step brought him to his open door.
"Tiger!" he called under his breath; and there was a world of interrogation and anxiety in his voice.
"What's up now?" inquired Jan, coming in with a sort of rough swagger foreign to his habit, though Chips had observed it once or twice in the course of their confidential relations.
"That's what I want to know," said he. "What has happened? What's going to happen? When have you got to say it by?"
"I've said it."
Chips might have been knocked down with a fledgeling's feather.
"You've said your Aytoun's Lay to Haigh?"
"Without a mistake," said Jan. "I've just finished saying it."
"But when on earth did you learn it, man?"
"In the holidays."
And Jan grinned uncouth superiority to the other's stupefaction.
