The day was Wednesday. There were only two more days, therefore, in
which to prepare a quarter of a book of Livy. It couldn't be done. The
thing was not possible.

In the house he met Smythe.

'What are you going to do about it?' he inquired. Smythe was top of the
form, and if he didn't know how to grapple with a crisis of this sort,
who _could_ know?

'If you'll kindly explain,' said Smythe, 'what the dickens you are
talking about, I might be able to tell you.'

Pillingshot explained, with unwonted politeness, that 'it' meant the
Livy examination.

'Oh,' said Smythe, airily, 'that! I'm just going to skim through it in
case I've forgotten any of it. Then I shall read up the notes
carefully. And then, if I have time, I shall have a look at the history
of the period. I should advise you to do that, too.'

'Oh, don't be a goat,' said Pillingshot.

And he retired, brooding, as before.

That afternoon he spent industriously, copying out the fourth book of
_The Aeneid_. At the beginning of the week he had had a slight
disagreement with M. Gerard, the French master.

Pillingshot's views on behaviour and deportment during French lessons