og, "and the Count will tell ye how ye're to sign yir names," and
then the Count, who had come in from his walk, much refreshed, advanced
again to the desk.

"It would be one great joy to have your autographs," said the Count,
"and I would place them in a book and say, 'My friends'; but honour
forbids. As I shall have the too great responsibility of judging, it is
necessary that I be--ah! I have forgotten the word--yes! show the fair
play. No, I must not know the names; for if I read the name of my friend
the ever active, the ever brave, the ever interesting Speug" (at this
indecent allusion Speug grew purple and gave the bench in front of him
to understand by well-known signs that if they looked at him again he
might give them something to look for outside), "I would say that Speug
is a sportsman but he is not a _litterateur_, and I might not do my
comrade the full justice. And if I read the name of the composed, the
studious, the profound young gentlemen who are before me" (and it was
fortunate the Dowbiggins had their backs to the school), "I would know
that it must be the best before I read it, and that would not be the
fair play.

"No! you will write on your admirable essay a motto--what you
please--and your name you will put in an envelope, so," and the Count
wrote his own name in the most dashing manner, and in an awful silence,
on a piece of paper, and closed the envelope with a graceful flourish:
"and outside you will put your motto, so it will be all the fair play,
and in the Town Hall next Saturday I shall have the felicity to declare
the result. _Voila!_ Has my plan your distinguished approbation?" and
the Count made a respectful appeal to Bulldog. "Nothing could be fairer,
you say? Then it is agreed, and I allow myself to wish you adieu for
this day."

When the school assembled for conference among the Russian guns, their
minds were divided between two subjects. The first was what Speug had
written, on which that strenuous student would give no information,
resenting the inquiry both as an insult to his abilities and an
illustration of vain curiosity on the part of the school. Nestie,
however, volunteered the trustworthy information that Speug had spent
his whole time explaining the good which he had got from being kept in
one Saturday forenoon and doing mathematical problems under the eye of
Bulldog. And Nestie added that he thought it mean of Peter to "suck up"
to the master in this disgraceful fashion