EXAM TIME

What ought to be the last word in our national craze for examinations and tests is found in the announcement of an aged man in North Carolina that he is ready to take the “Charlie Ross Test.”

“The Charlie Ross Test” seems to have for its object the examination of the candidate to see whether or not he is the Charlie Ross who was kidnaped, as a little boy, from his home in Germantown, Pa., in 1873. The successful candidate is to receive an embossed certificate with the name “Charlie Ross” in Old English type at the top. He is also allowed to say, “I am Charlie Ross,” when introducing himself to people.

Candidates in the Charlie Ross Test are given two hours in which to complete the examination, and a choice of seven questions out of ten. Question No. 4, however (“Are you white or black?”), must be answered, as the Charlie Ross who was kidnaped was known to have been white.

Mr. Julius Dellinger, the present contestant, has been cramming for the test for over six months, and feels fairly confident that he will pass with flying colors. A question of ruling came up last week, when it was discovered that Mr. Dellinger had been tutoring on the side with a man supposed to have been the original Charlie Ross’s uncle, but it was decided to allow this provided that the candidate does not take notes into the examination-room with him.

“What will you do if you win?” Mr. Dellinger was asked.

“I will be just the happiest man in the world,” was the reply. “First of all, I will have stationery made with ‘C. R.’ on it, and then I will look up all my new relatives in the Ross family and perhaps visit them for a while.”

“When you have passed the Charlie Ross Test, do you expect to take the Ambrose Bierce Test?” the reporter asked.

“I looked into the Ambrose Bierce Test before I decided on the Charlie Ross one,” Mr. Dellinger said, “but as Bierce was quite well on in years when he disappeared in Mexico, it would be rather a tough examination to take. So many people knew what Bierce looked like, and then, too, there would always be the possibility that I might not be Bierce after all. It would be very humiliating to get up before the Board of Regents and discover that you were Charlie Ross when you were taking the Ambrose Bierce examination, or vice versa.”

“Had you ever thought that perhaps you might be the Man with the Iron Mask?” Mr. Dellinger was asked.

“Well, that would hardly be possible,” he said with a smile, “as the Man with the Iron Mask lived in the seventeenth century and spoke French. I speak no French. Still,” he added with a touch of wistfulness, “I might learn.”

“Aside from the language,” the reporter suggested, “it ought to be an easier test than either the Ross or Bierce one, for no one knows what the Man with the Iron Mask looked like.”

Mr. Dellinger thought for a minute. Then a look of determination came into his eyes. “I’ll send for a set of last year’s examination papers tomorrow,” he said. And into his bearing there crept something of the grand manner, a slightly imperious gesture with the hand, a courtly toss to the head. For the Man with the Iron Mask was said by some to have been the son of Cardinal Mazarin and Anne of Austria.

With a low bow the reporter withdrew.