On the match being resumed at two o'clock, with four hundred lines on
the score-sheet, he had played a fine, free game during afternoon
school, and Mr Dexter, who objected to fine, free games--or, indeed,
any games--during school hours, had increased the total to six hundred,
when stumps were drawn for the day.

So on a bright sunny Saturday afternoon, when he should have been out
in the field cheering the house-team on to victory against the School
House, Jackson sat in the junior day-room at Dexter's copying out
portions of Virgil, Aeneid Two.

To him, later on in the afternoon, when he had finished half his task,
entered Painter, with the news that Dexter's had taken thirty points
off the School House just after half-time.

"Mopped them up," said the terse and epigrammatic Painter. "Made rings
round them. Haven't you finished yet? Well, chuck it, and come out."

"What's on?" asked Jackson.

"We're going to have a boat race."

"Pile it on."

"We are, really. Fact. Some of these School House kids are awfully sick
about the match, and challenged us. That chap Tomlin thinks he can row.

"He can't row for nuts," said Jackson. "He doesn't know which end of
the oar to shove into the water. I've seen cats that could row better
than Tomlin."