'We're almost certain to be lumbered with the cretin at the end of the summer term,' he grumbled, 'and at this rate, he'll never get a job.'
'I think you're being very hard on him. Dr Andrews says he's probably a late developer.'
'And how late is late? He'll be fifty before he knows that Oui is French for Yes and not an instruction to go to the toilet. And I'll be ninety.'
'And in your second childhood,' retorted Mrs Clyde-Browne.
'Quite,' said her husband. 'In which case you'll have double problems. Peregrine won't be out of his first. Well, if you want to share your old age with a middle-aged adolescent, I don't.'
'Since I'm spending my own middle-age with a bad-tempered and callous '
'I am not callous. I may be bad-tempered but I am not callous. I am merely trying to do the best for your...all right, our son while there's still time.'
'But his reports say '
But Mr Clyde-Browne's patience had run out. 'Reports? Reports? I'd as soon believe a single word of a Government White Paper as give any credence to those damned reports. They're designed to con parents of morons to go on shelling out good money. What I want are decent exam results.'
'In that case you should have taken my advice in the first place and had Peregrine privately tutored,' said Mrs Clyde-Browne, knitting with some ferocity.
Mr Clyde-Browne wilted into a chair. 'You may be right at that,' he conceded, 'though I can't imagine any educated man staying the course. Peregrine would have him in a mental home within a month. Still, it's worth trying. There must be some case-hardened crammer who could programme him with enough information to get his O-levels. I'll look into it.'
As a result of this desperate determination, Peregrine had spent the Easter holidays with Dr Klaus Hardboldt, late of the Army Education Corps. The doctor's credentials were of the highest. He had drilled the Duke of Durham's son into Cambridge against hereditary odds and had had the remarkable record of teaching eighteen Guards officers to speak pidgin Russian without a lisp.
'I think I can guarantee your son will pass his O-levels,' he told Mr Clyde-Browne. 'Give me anyone for three weeks of uninterrupted training and they will learn.'
Mr Clyde-Browne had said he hoped so and had paid handsomely. And Dr Hardboldt had lived up to his promise. Peregrine had spent three weeks at the Doctor's school in Aldershot with astonishing results. The Doctor's methods were based on his intimate observations of dogs and a close connection with several chief examiners.
'Don't imagine I expect you to think, because I don't,' he explained the first morning. 'You are here to obey. I require the use of only one faculty, that of memory. You will learn off by heart the answers to the questions which will be set you in the exam. Those of you who fail to remember the answers will be put on bread and water; those who are word perfect will get fillet steak. Is that clear?'
The class nodded.
'Pick up the piece of paper in front of you and turn it over.'
The class did as they were told.
'That is the answer to the first question in the Maths paper you will be set. You have twenty minutes in which to learn it off by heart.'
At the end of twenty minutes, Peregrine could remember the answer. Throughout the day, the process continued. Even after dinner it resumed and it was midnight before Peregrine got to bed. He was wakened at six next morning and required to repeat the answers he had learnt the day before to a tape recorder.
'That is known as reinforcement,' said the Doctor. 'Today we will learn the answers to the French questions. Reinforcement will be done tomorrow before breakfast.'
Next day, Peregrine went hungrily into the classroom for geography and was rewarded with steak at dinner. By the end of the week, only one boy in the class was still incapable of remembering the answers to all the questions in History, Geography, Maths, Chemistry, Biology and English Literature.
Dr Hardboldt was undismayed. 'Sit, sir,' he ordered when the boy fell off his chair for the third time, owing to semi-starvation. The lad managed to get into a sitting position. 'Good dog,' said the Doctor, producing a packet of Chocdrops. 'Now beg.'
As the boy put up his hands, the Doctor dropped a Chocdrop into his mouth. 'Good. Now then Parkinson, if you can obey that simple instruction, there's not the slightest doubt you can pass the exam.'
'But I can't read,' whimpered Parkinson, and evidently tried to wag his tail.
Doctor Hardboldt looked at him grimly. 'Can't read? Stuff and nonsense, sir. Any boy whose parents can afford to pay my fees must be able to read.'
'But I'm dyslexic, sir.'
The Doctor stiffened. 'So,' he said. 'In that case we'll have to apply for you to take your O-levels orally. Take this note to my secretary.'
As Parkinson wobbled from the room, the Doctor turned back to the class. 'Is there any other do...boy here who can't read? I don't want any shilly-shallying. If you can't read, say so, and we'll have you attended to by the hypnotist.'
But no one in the class needed the attentions of the hypnotist.
The second week was spent writing down verbatim the answers to the questions and in further reinforcement. Peregrine was woken every so often during the night and interrogated. 'What is the answer to question four in the History paper?' said the doctor.
Peregrine peered bleary-eyed into the ferocious moustache. 'Gladstone's policy of Home Rule for Ireland was prevented from becoming law because Chamberlain, formerly the radical Mayor of Birmingham, split the Liberal party and...'
'Good dog,' said the doctor when he had finished and rewarded him with a Chocdrop.
But it was in the third week that reinforcement became most rigorous. 'A tired mind is a receptive mind,' the doctor announced on Sunday evening. 'From now on, you will be limited to four hours sleep in every twenty-four, one hour in every six being allocated for rest. Before you go to sleep, you will write down the answers to one exam paper and, on being woken, will write them down again before going on to the next subject. In this way, you will be unable to fail your O-levels even if you want to.'
After seven more days of conditioning, Peregrine returned to his parents exhausted and with his brain so stuffed with exam answers that his parents had their own sleep interrupted by an occasional bark and the sound of Peregrine automatically reciting the doctor's orders. They were further disturbed by Dr Hardboldt's insistence that Peregrine be prevented from returning to Groxbourne until after he had sat his exams. 'It is absolutely essential that he isn't exposed to the confusion of other methods of teaching,' he said. 'Nothing is more damaging to an animal's learning ability than contradictory stimuli.'
'But Peregrine isn't an animal,' protested Mrs Clyde-Browne. 'He's a delicate, sensitive '
'Animal,' said her husband, whose views on his son coincided entirely with the Doctor's.
'Exactly,' said Dr Hardboldt. 'Now where most teachers go wrong is in failing to apply the methods used in animal training to their pupils. If a seal can be taught to balance a ball on its nose, a boy can be taught to pass exams.'
'But the questions are surely different every year,' said Mr Clyde-Browne.
Dr Hardboldt shook his head. 'They can't be. If they were, no one could possibly teach the answers. Those are the rules of the game.'
'I hope you're right,' said Mrs Clyde-Browne.
'Madam, I am,' said the Doctor. 'Time will prove it.'