THE INTERLOPER

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 220, 17 September 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE INTERLOPER

Our Latin paper# didn't come back till the day before we broke up. Miss Townley came in to give them to us, looking serious and worried, we noticcd, and we had fearful qualms that perhaps we'd all done shockingly badly. But it wasn't that. She put down the bundle of papers On her de«k and leant over and looked at us solemnly:

"Before I give back your papers," she began, "I have something to say that lam sorry—very sorry—to have to say. If you had been a. lower form I might have spoken only to the individuals concerned, but I feel that the honour of the whole Sixth is involved in the wrong* doing of any of its members. There is an extraordinary siffliliarity between two of these papers. I»:> particular the translations of many of the most difficult lines of the Virfil an 'practically identical. Moreover, $hose translations, though quite correct, are not one* that had occurred to me of had ever been suggested in class. After much troubled thought I have come to the reluctant conclusion that tha only feasible explanation is—copying?" She paused, and then went on awfully contemptuously: "Copying—the sort of thing one docs not expect to find in any form above the Junior School, much less in the Sixth. The two girls concerned are Ncsta Taiykn- and Dorothy Fellowes. Dorothy, I see, is absent. Nesta, what have you to say?"

Well, Nessie had turned scarlet long before her name was mentioned 1 That gave her away pretty completely, didn't it T Miss Townley noticed it too, evidently, for she flared at Nessie frightfully sternly. Another thing, we •II remembered perfectly well that Nessie had sat rather behind Dorothy in the exam, so that she could just see her papers if she wanted to, whereas Dorothy couldn't possibly see behind her, could she? It was a elear case.

Nessic denied it, of Oourae. Sh® really looked quite indignant as (the skid:

"Neither of us copied—how could you think so?"

"What expls nation do you give, then?" asked Miss Townley, still very sternly.

"I can't explain," anewered Nessie in a helpless sort of way, "hut I didn't copy.' 1 Miss Townley obvlottsly didn't believe her. hut all she said Was:

"Well, as Dorothy is Hot here, the matter cannot be cleared up at present. Come to mc after school." And then she just ignored those two papers and gave us hack ours.

But before school was over Miss Townley was wired for to go home ai her brother was very ill, and the whole tiling was just left at a loose end. We couldn't do anything, of course, but Nessie could see what we thought. Not "nc of 119 spoke a single word to her if ehe could possibly help it. Oh. we were furious at a thing like that happening in the Sixth!

"That's the worst Of prigs," said Beatrice Dicker bitterly, "hajf the time they do beastly mean things themselves, and let you down all round."

Xone of us saw Dorothy In the holidays, as she was away for a change, so that it wasn't until we went bach to school on the first day of the summer term that we had a chance to pour out ihe fall story, which we did at the firr.

Concluded

«>l port unity, which was at lunch time. Nobody had greeted Nessie at all when she put in an apjiearance, and she went to her desk in the midst of a pointed silence; and it irritated us when Dorothy, arriving a few minutes later, and, of course, knowing nothing of the row, called out cheerfully:

"Hallo, Nessie! Had nice holidays?" much as she did to all the rest of us.

We hustled her into the playground When the bell went for break, and when we'd found out that we couldn't make her understand when we all spoke at once, tha reet of ue shut up and let Emmie tell the tale.

When ahe'd finished Dorothy looked at us quite calmly.

"What did you think," she asked; "that I had cheated?" "Good heavens, no," we shouted. "Of course not, Dorothy!"

"Then you mean you thought Nessie had done a mean thing lika that?" ehe went on.

"Well, what would you have thought yourself?"' we asked her. "I don't know, and it doeent in the least matter," she answered, "but what does matter Is the truth. When I was crocked up with my beastly ankle last term, Nessie came in to ask after it and to sec if she could bring me any books or things from echool, as she lived nearer than any of the rest of us, and then she took to coming in and telling me What had happened In claes, and finally she went through every lesson with me and helped me no end. You've no idea how decent ahe was about it, and when I Said it was a shame for her to wasta her time over me she said ahe liked it. And you don't know what tons she's got to get through for that bleased scholarship. The Virgil we spent ages over—you know I'm not awfully good at it—and we worried out thosa translation* together. That's why we got them the same. It's perfectly simple. And Neesle made me promise I wouldn't give her away to you. She said you would snark, and that you'd neter sec the difference between helping me like that and the working all together before schoor that she'd make a fuse about, and wished to goodness afterwards she hadn't, she says. But, of course, I'm bound to tell you now." We looked at each other, feeling pretty idiotic, I can tell you. "Well; we'd better find Neseie, I should think," said Emmie at last, and we all agreed. We found that poor kid with hqr head in her desk. She pretended she hadn't been howling, ao, of course,' we pretended we didn't notice, and Emmie just went straight ahead and apologised. It was a handsome apology for Emmie can say things nicely, but Nessie looked awfully uncomfortable all the time, and only said It waa all right and dldnt matter a bit, ,

And then Emmie added fhat we were poing to tell Miss Townley the facta of the case.

A.vi I'm go.ne to ask her what she tl» V ~ about aaiiLg prep, together," ah*

ended, "because, as a matter of fact, I've been thinking about what you said, and I don't feel sure. And. anyway, we do see the difference between that and helping Dorothy, don't we, girls?" And we showed that we jolly well did.

Of course. Mis« Townley agreed with N'essie. and said our "common sense" ought to have told us that it was lnvt for ourselves to work ()iiite separately, though there was no question of cheating involved. And ehe apologised handsomely, too, for her suspicions.

So Nessie scored all along the line. But she didn't crow. And, really, she turned out * decent kid when we were nice to her, as, of course, we were after that to make up for being beastly before, and she and Dorothy got to be great pals.

And you should have heard the Sixth clap when it was 'announced at tho end of the term that the Middlemarch Scholarship had been awarded to Nesta Taylor.