"You reckon as it will spread, then?"
"I don't know. I hope not. . . . It's a mercy that the schools are closed for the holidays. When did they close, by the way?"
"Just a week ago."
"H'm. . . . I must step up and ask the Schoolmaster a few questions."
"I called you in to cure my Josey, not to talk about other folk's children." (Mrs Jago was a resentful woman.)
"And I am doing my best for him. . . . Tut! in a week or so he'll be running about as well as ever. But I'm the Medical Officer of Health, ma'am."
"Well I know it; seein' that, four months back, as you happened to be passin', I called you in an' asked you to look at the poor dear's eyes an' give me a certificate that he was sufferin' from something chronic. An' you flatly declined."
"If my memory serves me, I said he had a small stye in his eye, and I was willing to certify that for what it was worth, if you didn't mind paying me half-a-crown."
"If edication's free, as they call it, I don't see why a body should pay half-a-crown to get off what can be had for nothing. That's how I reasoned then, and always shall. In consikence o' which that la-di-da of an Attendance Officer, that thinks all the maids be after him an' looks sideways into every shop window he passes for a sight of his own image—and if it rids us of a fella like that, I'm all for Conscription—got me summonsed before the Tregarrick bench an' fined another half-crown, with five shillin' costs. An' now, when the mischief's done an' the tender dear one rash from head to foot"— Mrs Jago mopped her eyes with the edge of her apron—"what better can 'ee say than thank God the schools be closed! For my part, I wish He'd close an' roll the great stone o' Daniel agenst 'em for ever and ever!"
Doctor Mant sought up the valley to the Schoolmaster, Mr Rounsell, whose quarters formed a part of the school buildings, and ended the block on its southern or seaward side. One roof, indeed, covered him in and out of school: and the Vicar, as one of the Managers, had been heard to lament this convenient provision. "It never allows the fellow to forget his chain: he talks to me as if I were a class of forty."