Irving arrived a minute before the hour and found his class already
assembled—a suspicious circumstance. There was, too, he felt, an air of
subdued, joyous expectancy. He took his seat and, adjusting his
spectacles, peered round the room; his eyesight was very bad, and he
had, moreover, like so many bookworms, never trained his faculty of
observation.

He read the roll of the class; every boy was there.

“Scarborough, you may go to the blackboard and demonstrate the Fifth
Theorem; Dennison, you the Sixth; Westby, you the Eighth. The rest of
you will solve at your seats this problem.”

He mounted to the blackboard himself and wrote out the question. While
he had his back turned, he heard some whispering; he looked over his
shoulder. Westby was lingering in his seat and had obviously been
holding communication with his neighbor.

“Westby,”—Irving’s voice was sharp,—“were you trying to get help at the
last moment?”

“I was not.” Westby’s answer was prompt.

“Then don’t delay any longer, please; go to the blackboard at once.”

“Yes, sir.”

Westby moved to the blackboard on the side of the room—the one at right
angles to that on which Irving and Scarborough were at work.