Alfred Drayson - The Gentleman Cadet

“Just write down this question,” said Mr Monk; “we shall soon see if you know anything about rule-of-three.”

The following question was then dictated to me: —

“If 10 men and 6 boys dig a trench 100 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 5 feet deep, in 12 days, how many boys ought to be employed to dig a trench 200 feet long, 3 feet deep, and 6 feet wide, in 8 days, if only 5 men were employed, 2 boys being supposed equal to 1 man?”

As I read over this question I felt my heart sink within me. I knew I could not do it properly, and that I should again expose myself to ridicule in having said I could accomplish rule-of-three, when, if this were rule-of-three, I knew nothing of it. I sat for several minutes looking at the question, and trying to discover some means for its solution. Boys were mixed in my mind with ditches, men with days, and deep holes with width. At least a quarter of an hour passed without my making the slightest advance in the way of solution; at the end of this time Mr Monk looked at my slate and said, —

“So you don’t seem to know much about rule-of-three?”

“I never saw a sum like this before,” I replied.

“Then why did you tell me that you could do rule-of-three? Do you know your multiplication table?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“What’s 12 times 11?” he inquired.

Now, of all the multiplication table, 11 times anything was to me the easiest, because I remembered that two similar figures, such as 66, was 6 times 11, 77 was seven times 11, and so on; but 12 times 11 was a number I was always rather shaky about. I hesitated a moment and then made a wild rush at it, and said, “One hundred and twenty-one?”

Mr Monk looked at me with a mingled expression of pity and contempt, and said, “You’re nearly fifteen, and you don’t know your multiplication table, and yet you think you’re going to be an engineer! Why there’s not a boy at the charity-school who at twelve does not know more than you!”

I listened attentively to this remark, for I felt that Mr Monk was a prophet. It was quite true that I was a dunce. I had learnt it, and realised it in half a day. It had been forcibly impressed on me as I tried to learn Euclid, as I was ignominiously defeated by Fraser in a pugilistic encounter in something like ten minutes, and now when it was proved to me! did not know my multiplication table.

“You’d better commence at simple addition,” said Monk, “and work your way up. You can’t join any class; there’s no one so backward as you are. Your nursemaid ought to have taught you these things. At Mr Hostler’s we don’t expect to have to teach even arithmetic. It will take you three years to get up to quadratics!”

“Well, Mr Monk,” said Hostler, bustling into the room, “I hope Shepard is well up in his algebra?”

“He doesn’t even know his multiplication table?” said Monk.

Hostler stared at me much as he would at a dog with only two legs or a bird with one wing. Having given me a long searching look, under which I blushed and felt inclined to shrink under the form, he said, —

“Poor fellow! your friends have got a lot to answer for! What a pity it is, Mr Monk, that in civilised England people who are gentlefolks are not compelled by law to educate their children! Look at this boy, now. I dare say, at home and in the country, he was thought to be fit to run alone; and yet there he is, a regular dunce! Now, Shepard,” he said, “you must begin to learn; you must work hard; and if there’s no chance of your getting into the Academy, why, what you learn here will always be of use to you; so don’t be idle.”

Having made this remark, Mr Hostler went about the school, looking at the slates of the various boys, talking to several, and explaining their problems to them. As for me, I was soon busily engaged in adding up a long row of pounds, shillings, and pence, which I did not accomplish without three times failing to obtain the right total. At length, however, I was successful, just as it was time to turn out for our afternoon walk.

On going to bed that night I seemed to have passed through more, and to have gained more experience in that one day that I had in years before. I had learnt that I knew nothing – that my supposed knowledge was not real – that I was, in fact, a dunce, far behind all other boys of my own age – that I was weak in physical strength – and though my sisters used to think me awfully strong, yet this, too, was a mistake. Mixed with the depressing effect of this knowledge there was, however, a slight feeling of satisfaction in knowing that now at least I was among realities, whilst before I was among dreams. I had, too, a kind of presentiment that I had within me a capacity for doing work, if I could only get in the way of it. When I used to help my father in his microscope work, and sketched some of the wonderful details of the wings, legs, or bodies of the insects I saw, he always prophesied that I should do great things some day. Now, however, I realised the fact that I was a dunce – that I was so far behind other boys that it was improbable I could ever catch them up, and so to expect to excel was out of the question; if I could only attain to mediocrity I should be satisfied.

Such thoughts passed through my mind as I dozed off to sleep, and dreamed I was untangling a skein of wire, that as fast as I undid one part another portion gathered itself in a knot.

Suddenly I felt a choking sensation, and started up in bed with a strange bewildered feeling over me. The room was quite dark, and I could not see one of the ten beds occupied by the other boys in the room. I, however, heard a slight noise as of some one getting into bed, and then a smothered laugh. As I fully awoke I found I was drenched with water and my bed and pillow were wet – a fact I was much puzzled at.

As I sat up, wondering what had happened, a boy called out, “Shepard! what are you about?”

“I am wet through, somehow,” I said.

“Ah! some one has given you a ‘cold pig,’ I suppose, because you snored so. Don’t you make such a row again.”

When I was at home it was instilled into me that it was almost certain death to sleep in a damp bed, and numerous instances were quoted to me of persons who had either died of consumption, or been cripples for life in consequence of sleeping in wet sheets. In the present instance, however, there was no help for it. I must either sit up all night, or sleep in the bed, wet as it was. I was so completely tired, so utterly worn out, bodily and mentally, that I did not care who it was had thrown the water on me. My head ached, from over-thought as much as from the blows I had received in my fight, and I again laid down in the wet bed, and slept as well as though in my own room at home.

I had not half completed what would have been a fair night’s rest under ordinary conditions when I was awoke by the shrill voice of a boy shouting “Quarter!” I at first imagined this cry might mean something connected with a battle, and that the enemy were calling out for quarter; but on fully awaking I found each boy jumping up, and rushing to a basin of water and washing in the greatest haste. I followed the example set me by the other boys, from whom I learnt that we all had to be in the schoolroom by six o’clock, and any boy who was not in the room when the clock struck got no breakfast. We all rushed from our room about a minute before the clock struck, and entered the school where I had been on the previous day; and I then found that between six and seven a proposition in Euclid had to be learnt on nearly every morning. So I was at once started at my definitions.

In the hour allotted I managed to learn my definitions, and said them to the satisfaction of Mr Monk, and was able, therefore, to go out with the other boys for the half-hour preceding breakfast.