Bitterly did he brood over this as he slowly and laboriously copied out sundry vain repetitions of such axioms as, "Cultivate Habits of Courtesy and Self-control," and "True Happiness is to be sought in Contentment." He saw the prospect of a tolerably severe flogging growing more and more distinct, and felt that he could not present himself to his family with the consciousness of having suffered such an indelible disgrace. His family! What would become of them in his absence? Would he ever see his comfortable home in Bayswater again?
Tea-time came, and after it evening preparation, when Mr. Tinkler presided in a feeble and ineffective manner, perpetually suspecting that the faint sniggers he heard were indulged in at his own expense, and calling perfectly innocent victims to account for them.
Paul sat next to Jolland and, in his desperate anxiety to avoid further unpleasantness, found himself, as he could not for his life have written a Latin or a German composition, reduced to copy down his neighbour's exercises. This Jolland (who had looked forward to an arrangement of a very opposite kind) nevertheless cheerfully allowed him to do, though he expressed doubts as to the wisdom of a servile imitation--more, perhaps, from prudence than conscientiousness.
Jolland, in the intervals of study, was deeply engaged in the production of a small illustrated work of fiction, which he was pleased to call _The Adventures of Ben Buterkin at Scool_. It was in a great measure an autobiography, and the cuts depicting the hero's flagellations--which were frequent in the course of the narrative--were executed with much vigour and feeling.
He turned out a great number of these works in the course of the term, as well as faces in pen and ink with moving tongues and rolling eyes, and these he would present to a few favoured friends with a secretive and self-depreciatory giggle.
Amidst scenes and companions like these, Paul sat out the evening hours on his hard seat, which was just at the junction of two forms--an exquisitely uncomfortable position, as all who have tried it will acknowledge--until the time for going to bed came round again. He dreaded the hours of darkness, but there was no help for it--to protest would have been madness just then, and, once more, he was forced to pass a night under the roof of Crichton House.