CHAPTER XV
With June came examinations at Hadley. Long, long experience and concentration on the subject had taught Hadley administrators exactly how to time their training so that when examinations came, the boys would be in the pink of condition. Two weeks later they would be stale, horribly, sickeningly stale, but nobody at Hadley cared a continental what happened two weeks after examinations. That was no business of theirs. Weary, but still docilely answering the crack of the ring-master's questions, the thoroughly disciplined Troupe of Trained Boys went through subject after subject, with the automatic rear and plunge of circus-riders breaking paper hoops. That was all right. Those were only the Hadley examinations. They expected to be able to pass those.
But now for the College Entrance examinations, the Apollyon which from afar their professors at Hadley had pointed out to them, straddling over all their roads, belching out brimstone-fire on all who tried to pass. With much trepidation hidden under his usual decent impassivity, Neale journeyed up to take his first examinations at Columbia. He was glad that the first chanced to be in history. That was one of his good subjects. He stood a better chance there. With a careful air of carelessness, he went up to the proctor's desk, took one off the pile of the printed examination sheets, and with it in his hand, not entirely steady, he went back to his seat. Safe from observation there, he laid it before him and his eyes leaping to know the worst, took in the first three questions at one glance. Holy Smoke! Was this all? Was it for this he had sweat blood! There was an outline map of the United States, with a request to mark on it the location of such idiotically well-known places as Acadia, Pittsburg, New Orleans. There was "French and Indian Wars. State causes immediate and remote." There was, "What do
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