"Ah! Good morning! I've been looking for you for a long time. I wanted to tell you how much the children have improved; every village boy touches his cap to me now!" and she laughed gaily.
"Good!" I cried. "If this sort of thing goes on they will be touching their caps to their mothers next."
"And why not?" she demanded with a slight touch of aggression.
I shrugged my shoulders.
"As you say—why not? I think that you ought to persuade your little boy to touch his cap to all the mothers in the village. I notice that he doesn't do it. You take my tip and send him down to Macdonald's school; he'll soon pick it up."
She went off without a word, and I realised that I had been distinctly rude to her. Somehow I felt glad that I had been rude to her.
I told Margaret about the incident afterwards.
"I hate manners, Margaret," I said.
"But," she said wonderingly, "you are very mannerly."
"To you I believe I am, Margaret," I laughed. "But that is because you don't look for manners. Mrs. Martinlake is eternally looking for manners, and to her manners mean respect, deference, boot-licking. She doesn't want the boys to doff their caps to her because she is a woman; no, she wants them to recognise the fact that she is Mrs. Martinlake, self-alleged friend of duchesses. She doesn't care a tupenny damn for the boys and their lives; she is thinking of Mrs. Martinlake all the time. She once talked to me of the respect due to motherhood ... and you know that she sacked Liz Smith when she discovered that Liz had had an illegitimate child.