human
He was a holy terror,
gpt
Quite so. But in what way?
human
I can't remember anything particular about him, he said,
gpt
But tell me something personal about him. How did his conversation impress you?
human
Didn't you meet him all the time you were at school?
gpt
Oh yes, I _met_ him, replied my friend with feeling--
human
You simply have to employ a certain amount of low cunning if you are going to keep a school going at all. And he was right. A man unendowed with the divine gift of rudeness would, if he spent his time answering the criticisms or meeting the objections of colleagues or parents or even boys, have no time for anything else. So he seeks refuge either in finesse or flight. If a parent rings him up on the telephone, he murmurs something courteous about a wrong number and then leaves the receiver off the hook. If a housemaster, swelling with some grievance or scheme of reform, bears down upon him upon the cricket field on a summer afternoon, he adroitly lures him under a tree where another housemaster is standing, and leaves them there together. If an enthusiastic junior discharges at his head some glorious but quite impracticable project, such as the performance of a pastoral play in the school grounds, or the enforcement of a vegetarian diet upon the School for experimental purposes, he replies:
gpt
My dear fellow, the Governing Body will never hear of it! What he means is:
human
The Governing Body shall never hear of it.
gpt
A very unpleasant and discreditable thing has happened. The municipal authorities have recently erected a pair of extremely ornate and expensive--er--lamp-posts outside the residence of the Mayor of the town. These lamp-posts appear to have attracted the unfavourable notice of the School. Last Sunday evening, between seven and eight o'clock, they were attacked and wrecked, apparently by volleys of stones.