FOOTNOTES:
[24] Dickens: Little Dorrit.
[25] And so Macduff: “He has no children.”
—Macbeth, Act IV. sc. iv.
CHAPTER XVIII
INSPECTORS
“Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”
Daniel xii. 4.
Not so much Inspectors, as H.M. Inspectors: that distinction was always present to the mind of a self-respecting H.M.I. The indoor staff fell back on the imaginary peerage, which they called “My Lords”: the outdoor staff went straight to the fountain of honour. And when on some sudden emergency I called at the house of an exceedingly deaf Rector (who had forgotten my face) and shouted through a trumpet that I was The Inspector, I was a little hurt to be asked “What of?” I fear he ranked me with my esteemed colleague in the other nuisances branch.
There were strange rumours thirty years ago of the all but regal position assumed by the pioneers of inspection. And no doubt they received much encouragement in country districts. In one corner of Bœotia I found a surprising instance of this homage. I had spent the night at “The Lion” at Littletown; the accommodation was humble, but sufficient; the bill presented in the morning was aspiring, and more than sufficient. I suggested some abatement and got it. Two or three years afterwards my successor proposed to sleep at “The Lion,” but prudently enquired beforehand whether they were likely to make him comfortable. The landlord assured him there was no cause for alarm; he had been patronised by Royalty. On further enquiry it appeared that the Royalty was Me. L’état, c’était moi. Thanks to large envelopes, “On Her Majesty’s Service,” addressed to H.M. Inspector, and unsoiled with the common postage stamp, I had been raised to Royal rank, and the reputation of the hotel and its charges had risen accordingly. I fear those loyal spirits are more cautious now.
In a leading article in The Times I read one day that a fact, which the writer had just discussed, occurred at a time “when Inspectors of Schools were really men of mark.” And about the same time I read in a novel by a lady writer that the objectionable young man of the story had got “one of those appointments which require no special capacity, such as an Inspectorship of Schools.” In the latter case I took pains to find out in what Inspector’s district the lady lived: and I discovered that her tyrant was one of the most amiable and most exemplary of men. Among other qualifications for the post he had the voice of a turtle-dove afflicted with tonsilitis; and as a preacher—he was in Holy Orders—he was inaudible at a distance of twenty feet from the pulpit. It is recorded of him that one Sunday, after he had been preaching in a strange church, the verger, or beadle, met one of the clerical staff, who had been engaged elsewhere, and said, “You ’aven’t missed much to-night, sir; we ’ad a bee in a bottle.”