Worse than anything, the Bible-lesson, when it came, was that most inexplicable second voyage of St. Paul. Thyatira . . . or was it Laodicea? . . . or were they the seven churches of Asia . . . and what exactly did underpinning the ship mean, or was that manœuvre executed on the other voyage? Mr. Dutton always consulted the New Testament Maclear over this elusive cruise, whereas the boys had to shut up that useful volume when they were questioned. It seemed scarcely fair. And even the Bible-lesson had not been arrived at yet; they were still sticking and bogged in the quagmires of the Catechism.
At last they stuck altogether: there was no more progression possible. It only remained to hear the sentence on their condemned heads. Everybody without exception was condemned. One had to write out the Creed, another the Commandments, and all their duty towards their neighbours.
“And I shall myself take the same lesson to-day week,” said the Head, “and if the form generally does not show a far better knowledge of the Catechism, I shall be unable to adopt the leniency with which I have treated their shortcomings to-day. Next Sunday, then, I shall hold the class in my study.”
The significance of this was not lost upon anybody. The study was a room of awful import, and the comfort of the low red morocco settee, the interest of the photographs of Oxford crews on the wall, in which the Head appeared with side-whiskers and no beard could not compensate for the uneasy knowledge that in the middle drawer of the knee-hole table at which he sat were a couple of canes. It was no rare thing for the Head to take a bunch of rattling keys from his pocket, which was the first step, and to fit one of them into the centre drawer. Sometimes, with rising voice, he turned it and opened the drawer, and if things still went badly the trembling victim was put through the farce of choosing which cane he preferred and then advancing the palms of his hands. . . .
The Head paused after this prodigious announcement about the venue for the Catechism-class next Sunday and opened the mark-book. Mr. Dutton was scrupulously neat in his methods, and there in the first column of the marks for the new week was his list, headed “Catechism.” The Head scrutinised these in silence.