"Not what you said, eh? We'll take you through it. How do you pronounce 'bones'?"
No answer, but a firmer cast to the jaw of Jan, a less abject droop of the shoulders, a good inch more in actual stature.
"B, o, n, e, s!" crooned the professor, showing all his teeth.
But Jan had turned into a human mule. And the silence in the great room had suddenly grown profound.
"Well, we'll try something else," said the professor, consulting the text somewhat unsteadily, and speaking in a rather thin voice. "Let us hear you say the word 'sunk.' S, u, n, k—sunk. Now, if you please, no more folly. You are wasting all our time."
Jan had forgotten that; the reminder caused him a spasm of satisfaction. Otherwise he was by this time as entirely aware of his folly as anybody else present; but it was too late to point it out to him; it was too late to think of it now; his head was burning, his temples throbbed, his tongue clave. He could not have spoken now if he had tried. But it would have taken a better man than Abinger to make him try. And the better man sat by without a word, pale, stern, and troubled with a complex indignation.
"I can do nothing with this boy," said Abinger, turning to him with just a tremor in his thin high tones. "I must leave him to you, Mr. Thrale."
"Twelve o'clock!" cried the other with ominous emphasis; and as he stabbed the school list with his joiner's pencil, the Middle Remove rose and returned down the gangway to their accustomed place.
Jan went with them as one walking in his sleep. And Carpenter followed Jan with a tragic face and tears very near the surface. But as one sees furthest before rain, so Chips saw a good deal as he walked back blinking
