He had not got beyond the theory as yet – the practice of life was all to come. And by the way, ye tender mothers and sober fathers of Christian families, a prodigious thing that theory of life is as orally learned at a great public school. Why, if you could hear those boys of fourteen who blush before mothers, and sneak off in silence in the presence of their daughters, talking among each other – it would be the women's turn to blush then. Before he was twelve years old, and while his mother fancied him an angel of candour, little Pen had heard talk enough to make him quite awfully wise upon certain points; and so, Madam, has your pretty little rosy-cheeked son, who is coming home from school for the ensuing Christmas holidays. I don't say that the boy is lost, or that the innocence has left him which he had from »Heaven which is our home,« but that the shades of the prison-house are closing very fast over him, and that we are helping as much as possible to corrupt him.

Well – Pen had just made his public appearance in a coat with a tail, or cauda-virilis, and was looking most anxiously in his little study-glass to see if his whiskers were growing, like those of more fortunate youths his companions; and, instead of the treble voice with which he used to speak and sing (for his singing voice was a very sweet one, and he used when little to be made to perform »Home, sweet Home,« »My pretty Page,« and a French song or two which his mother had taught him, and other ballads, for the delectation of the senior boys), had suddenly plunged into a deep bass diversified by a squeak, which, when he was called upon to construe in school, set the master and scholars laughing – he was about sixteen years old, in a word, when he was suddenly called away from his academic studies.

It was at the close of the forenoon school, and Pen had been unnoticed all the previous part of the morning till now, when the Doctor put him on to construe in a Greek play. He did not know a word of it, though little Timmins, his form-fellow, was prompting him with all his might. Pen had made a sad blunder or two, when the awful chief broke out upon him.

»Pendennis, sir,« he said, »your idleness is incorrigible and your stupidity beyond example. You are a disgrace to your school, and to your family, and I have no doubt will prove so in after-life to your country. If that vice, sir, which is described to us as the root of all evil, be really what moralists have represented (and I have no doubt of the correctness of their opinion), for what a prodigious quantity of future crime and wickedness are you, unhappy boy, laying the seed! Miserable trifler! A boy who construes d and, instead of d but, at sixteen years of age, is guilty not merely of folly, and ignorance, and dullness inconceivable, but of crime, of deadly crime, of filial ingratitude, which I tremble to contemplate. A boy, sir, who does not learn his Greek play cheats the parent who spends money for his education. A boy who cheats his parent is not very far from robbing or forging upon his neighbour. A man who forges on his neighbour pays the penalty of his crime at the gallows. And it is not such a one that I pity (for he will be deservedly cut off), but his maddened and heart-broken parents, who are driven to a premature grave by his crimes, or, if they live, drag on a wretched and dishonoured old age. Go on, sir, and I warn you that the very next mistake that you make shall subject you to the punishment of the rod. Who's that laughing? What ill-conditioned boy is there that dares to laugh?« shouted the Doctor.

Indeed, while the master was making this oration, there was a general titter behind him in the schoolroom. The orator had his back to the door of this ancient apartment, which was open, and a gentleman who was quite familiar with the place – for both Major Arthur and Mr. John Pendennis had been at the school – was asking the fifth-form boy who sat by the door for Pendennis. The lad grinning pointed to the culprit against whom the Doctor was pouring out the thunders of his just wrath. Major Pendennis could not help laughing. He remembered having stood under that very pillar where Pen the younger now stood, and having been assaulted by the Doctor's predecessor years and years ago. The intelligence was ›passed round‹ that it was Pendennis's uncle in an instant, and a hundred young faces, wondering and giggling, between terror and laughter, turned now to the new-comer and then to the awful Doctor.

The Major asked the fifth-form boy to carry his card up to the Doctor, which the lad did with an arch look. Major Pendennis had written on the card, »I must take A.P. home; his father is very ill.«

As the Doctor received the card, and stopped his harangue with rather a scared look, the laughter of the boys, half constrained until then, burst out in a general shout. »Silence!« roared out the Doctor, stamping with his foot. Pen looked up and saw who was his deliverer. The Major beckoned to him gravely with one of his white gloves, and tumbling down his books, Pen went across.

The Doctor took out his watch. It was two minutes to one. »We will take the Juvenal at afternoon school,« he said, nodding to the Captain, and all the boys understanding the signal gathered up their books and poured out of the hall.

Young Pen saw by his uncle's face that something had happened at home. »Is there anything the matter with – my mother?« he said. He could hardly speak, though, for emotion, and the tears which were ready to start.

»No,« said the Major, »but your father's very ill.