Dr. Martin was sent for and pronounced the boy to be seriously
unwell; at the same time he prescribed absolute rest and absence
from nervous excitement. So the anxious parents were unwillingly
compelled to be content with what they had got already- being
frightened into leading him a quiet life for the short remainder of
the holidays. They were not idle, but Satan can find as much
mischief for busy hands as for idle ones, so he sent a little job in
the direction of Battersby which Theobald and Christina undertook
immediately. It would be a pity, they reasoned, that Ernest should
leave Roughborough, now that he had been there three years; it would
be difficult to find another school for him, and to explain why he had
left Roughborough. Besides, Dr. Skinner and Theobald were supposed
to be old friends, and it would be unpleasant to offend him; these
were all valid reasons for not removing the boy. The proper thing to
do then, would be to warn Dr. Skinner confidentially of the state of
his school, and to furnish him with a school list annotated with the
remarks extracted from Ernest, which should be appended to the name of
each boy.
Theobald was the perfection of neatness; while his son was ill
upstairs, he copied out the school list so that he could throw his
comments into a tabular form, which assumed the following shape
-only that of course I have changed the names.
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