The strange lady put on an air of being inexpressibly shocked, and exclaimed “I-should-think-so!” And here there occurred one of those wild, almost lunatic misunderstandings which are part of the daily experience of childhood. The Sixth Form was a group of older boys who were selected as having ‘character’ and were empowered to beat smaller boys. I had not yet learned of their existence, and I mis-heard the phrase ‘the Sixth Form’ as ‘Mrs Form’. I took it as referring to the strange lady. – I thought, that is, that her name was Mrs Form
Still, however, despite his prayers, Orwell did wet his bed again, which resulted in a beating, then another when he told someone the first hadn’t hurt.
this was the great, abiding lesson of my boyhood: that I was in a world where it was not possible for me to be good. And the double beating was a turning-point, for it brought home to me for the first time the harshness of the environment into which I had been flung. Life was more terrible, and I was more wicked, than I had imagined.