“No, Lucien,” vetoed Silvia. “You’ve 37 a fine practice here, and then there’s that attorneyship for the Bartwell Manufacturing Company.”
My hope of securing this appointment meant a good deal to us. We were now living up to every cent of my income and though we had the necessities, it was the luxuries of life I craved––for Silvia’s sake. She was a lover of music and we had no piano. She yearned to ride and she had no horse. We both had longings for a touring-car and we wanted to travel.
“I’ve thought of a scheme for a little respite from the sight and sound of the Polydores,” I remarked one day. “We’ll enter them in the public school. There are four more weeks yet before the long summer vacation.”
“That would be too good to be true,” declared Silvia. “Five or six hours each day, and then, too, their deportment will 38 be so dreadful that they will have to stay after school hours.”
I thought more likely their deportment would lead to suspension, but forbore to wet-blanket Silvia’s hopes.
I made my second call upon the male head of the House of Polydore to recommend and urge that its young scions be sent to the public school. I had misgivings as to the outcome of my proposition, as the Polydore parents believed themselves to be the only fount of learning in the town. To my surprise and intense gratification, my suggestion met with no objections whatever. Felix Polydore referred me to his wife and said he would abide by her decision. I found her, of course, buried in books, but remembering Ptolemy’s mode of gaining attention, I peremptorily closed the volume she was studying.
My audacity attained its object and I proferred my request, laying great stress on the quietude she would gain thereby. She replied that attendance at school would doubtless do them no harm, although she expressed her belief that the most thorough educations were those obtained outside of schools.
Silvia was wafted into the eighth heaven of bliss and then some, as the result of my diplomatic mission. Of course the task of preparing pupils out of the pestiferous Polydores devolved upon her, but she was actively aided by the eager and willing Huldah and between them they pushed the project that promised such an elysium with all speed. The prospective pupils themselves were not wildly enthusiastic over this curtailment of their liberty, but Huldah won the day by proposing that they carry their luncheon with them, promising an 40 abundant supply of sugared doughnuts and small pies.
Pythagoras foresaw recreation ahead in the opportunity to “lick all the kids,” and I assumed that Ptolemy had deep laid schemes for the outmaneuvering of teachers, but as his left hand never made confidant of his right, I could not expect to fathom the workings of his mind.