About This Book
What's your name? Diggory Trevanock. The whole class exploded. Now, then, said Mr. Blake, looking up from his mark-book with a broad grin on his own face-now, then, there's nothing to laugh at.-Look here, he added, turning to the new boy, how d'you spell it? Instead of being at all annoyed or disconcerted at the mirth of his class-mates, the youngster seemed rather to enjoy the joke, and immediately rattled out a semi-humorous reply to the master's question, - D I G, dig; G O R Y, gory-Diggory: T R E, tre; VAN, van; O C K, ock-Trevanock. Then turning round, he smiled complacently at the occupants of the desks behind, as much as to say: There, I've done all I can to amuse you, and I hope you're satisfied. This incident, one of the little pleasantries occasionally permitted by a class master, and which, like a judge's jokes in court, are always welcomed as a momentary relief from the depressing monotony of the serious business in hand-this little incident, I say, happened in the second class of a small preparatory school, situated on the outskirts of the market town of Chatford, and intended, according to the wording of a standing advertisement in the Denfordshire Chronicle, for the sons of gentlemen.
