“Yes, Bor. Whoop, whoop, whooping cough.”
Yes! I can safely recommend a little attic salt. I must not be too hard, however, on our friend; it is not quite safe for glebe tenants to differ from rectors as a rule. Three are already on notice for differing.
Mrs. Higdon, having faced the alternatives of being reprimanded for not closing the school or for allowing the reverend gentleman from Shimpling to close it—you takes your choice—went back to attend to her bairns considerably chastened, and Burston breathed again as of yore.
Unfortunately, the only two Englishmen who could have done justice to this theme are both dead.
Set to appropriate poetry by Gilbert, composed and orchestrated with a slight Mozartean sprinkling of consecutive fifths by Sir A. Sullivan, it might have brought down the house at the Savoy, likewise the National Union of Teachers’ Executive, had the N.U.T.S. not been suffering from sleeping sickness.
However, the reverently-composed committee had not given up all hopes, although the case was against them this time.
The next act opens with the appearance of Mr. Ikin, assistant-secretary to the Norfolk Education Committee. He paid what is known as a surprise visit.
A surprise visit is the most modern form of torture.
In the olden days they always brought you something. To-day they try to take everything you’ve got. In the olden days you sometimes received a goose, to-day they send you a picture postcard.
His surprise words to Mrs. Higdon were: “What is wrong between you and the managers?”