"We're no clever enough," said Tom Murray.
I turned to the girls.
"Now, let's see what ambition you have," I said hopefully. The result was good; three teachers, two nurses, one typist, one lady doctor, one . . . lady. This was Maggie Clark. She just wanted to be like one of thae ladies in the picters with a motor car.
"And husband?" I asked.
"No, I dinna want a man, but I wud like a lot of bairns," she said, and there was a snigger from the boys who had got their sex education from the ploughmen at the Brig of evenings.
Another girl remarked that Maggie's ambition was a selfish one.
"But are you not all selfish?" I asked.
The class indignantly denied it.
"Right," I said, "what do you say to a composition exercise?"
They obediently got out their composition books, but I told them that my exercise was an easy one. I tore up a few pages into slips and distributed them.