Samuel Butler: The Way of All Flesh

42. CHAPTER XLII (continued)

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. One cross in each square was to indicate occasional offence; two stood for frequent, and three for habitual delinquency.

          Smoking     Drinking beer    Swearing      Notes
                      at the "Swan     and Obscene
                      and Bottle."     Language.
Smith        O            O              XX          Will smoke
                                                     next half
Brown       XXX           O               X
Jones        X            XX              XXX
Robinson    XX            XX              X

And thus through the whole school.

Of course, in justice to Ernest, Dr Skinner would be bound over to secrecy before a word was said to him, but, Ernest being thus protected, he could not be furnished with the facts too completely.