bless the Prince of Wales, and blessed his Royal Highness to such
an extent that, for my own Uncommercial part, I gasped again when
it was over. The moment this was done, we formed, with surpassing
freshness, into hollow squares, and fell to work at oral lessons as
if we never did, and had never thought of doing, anything else.
Let a veil be drawn over the self-committals into which the
Uncommercial Traveller would have been betrayed but for a discreet
reticence, coupled with an air of absolute wisdom on the part of
that artful personage. Take the square of five, multiply it by
fifteen, divide it by three, deduct eight from it, add four dozen
to it, give me the result in pence, and tell me how many eggs I
could get for it at three farthings apiece. The problem is hardly
stated, when a dozen small boys pour out answers. Some wide, some
very nearly right, some worked as far as they go with such
accuracy, as at once to show what link of the chain has been
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Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller
dropped in the hurry. For the moment, none are quite right; but
behold a labouring spirit beating the buttons on its corporeal
waistcoat, in a process of internal calculation, and knitting an
accidental bump on its corporeal forehead in a concentration of
mental arithmetic! It is my honourable friend (if he will allow me
to call him so) the fifer. With right arm eagerly extended in
token of being inspired with an answer, and with right leg
foremost, the fifer solves the mystery: then recalls both arm and
leg, and with bump in ambush awaits the next poser. Take the
square of three, multiply it by seven, divide it by four, add fifty
to it, take thirteen from it, multiply it by two, double it, give
me the result in pence, and say how many halfpence. Wise as the
serpent is the four feet of performer on the nearest approach to
that instrument, whose right arm instantly appears, and quenches
this arithmetical fire. Tell me something about Great Britain,
tell me something about its principal productions, tell me
something about its ports, tell me something about its seas and
rivers, tell me something about coal, iron, cotton, timber, tin,
and turpentine. The hollow square bristles with extended right
arms; but ever faithful to fact is the fifer, ever wise as the
serpent is the performer on that instrument, ever prominently
buoyant and brilliant are all members of the band. I observe the
player of the cymbals to dash at a sounding answer now and then
rather than not cut in at all; but I take that to be in the way of
his instrument. All these questions, and many such, are put on the
spur of the moment, and by one who has never examined these boys.
The Uncommercial, invited to add another, falteringly demands how
many birthdays a man born on the twenty-ninth of February will have
had on completing his fiftieth year? A general perception of trap
and pitfall instantly arises, and the fifer is seen to retire
behind the corduroys of his next neighbours, as perceiving special
necessity for collecting himself and communing with his mind.
Meanwhile, the wisdom of the serpent suggests that the man will
have had only one birthday in all that time, for how can any man
have more than one, seeing that he is born once and dies once? The
blushing Uncommercial stands corrected, and amends the formula.
Pondering ensues, two or three wrong answers are offered, and
Cymbals strikes up ‘Six!’ but doesn’t know why. Then modestly
emerging from his Academic Grove of corduroys appears the fifer,
right arm extended, right leg foremost, bump irradiated. ‘Twelve,
and two over!’
The feminine Short-Timers passed a similar examination, and very
creditably too. Would have done better perhaps, with a little more
geniality on the part of their pupil-teacher; for a cold eye, my
young friend, and a hard, abrupt manner, are not by any means the
powerful engines that your innocence supposes them to be. Both
girls and boys wrote excellently, from copy and dictation; both
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