and eyes; they could not see distinctly, neither could they swallow;
and this they felt a continual desire to do.

One sat reckoning over how much he knew; and although but a few hours
before he had discovered that he knew everything, now he found out just
as confidently that he knew nothing, not even how to read in a book.

Another summed up the list of his sins, from the time he was large
enough to remember until now, and he decided that it would not be at
all remarkable if the Lord decreed that he should be rejected.

A third sat taking note of all things about him: if the clock which was
about to strike did not make its first stroke before he could count
twenty, he would pass; if the person he heard in the passage proved to
be the gard-boy Lars, he would pass; if the great rain-drop, working
its way down over the pane, came as far as the moulding of the window,
he would pass. The final and decisive proof was to be if he succeeded
in twisting his right foot about the left,--and this it was quite
impossible for him to do.

A fourth was convinced in his own mind that if he was only questioned
about Joseph in Bible history and about baptism in the Catechism, or
about Saul, or about domestic duties, or about Jesus, or about the
Commandments, or--he still sat rehearsing when he was called.

A fifth had taken a special fancy to the Sermon on the Mount; he had
dreamed about the Sermon on the Mount; he was sure of being questioned
on the Sermon on the Mount; he kept repeating the Sermon on the Mount
to himself; he had to go out doors and read over the Sermon on the
Mount--when he was called up to be examined on the great and the small