"I zent him into ze Charman Kladderadatch (it is a paper like your Ponch). It—mein choke—was upon ze Schleswig-Holstein gomplication; ze beginning was in this way——"
And he proceeded to set out in great length all the circumstances which had given materials for his "choke," with the successive processes by which he had shaped and perfected it, passing on to a recital of the masterpiece itself, and ending up by a philosophical analysis of the same, which must have placed his pupils in full possession of the point, for they laughed consumedly.
"I dell you zis," he said, "not to aggustom your minds vid frivolity and lightness, but as a lesson in ze gonstruction of ze langwitch. If you can choke in Charman, you will be able also to gonverse in Charman."
"Did the German what's-its-name print your joke?" inquired Coggs.
"It has not appeared yet," Herr Stohwasser confessed; "it takes a long time to get an imbortant choke like that out in brint. But I vait—I write to ze editor every week—and I vait."
"Why don't you put it in your Grammar?" suggested Tipping.
"I haf—ze greater part of it—(it vas a long choke, but I gompressed him). If I haf time, some day I will make anozer liddle choke to aggompany, begause I vant my Crammar to be a goot Crammar, you understandt. And now to our Tell. Really you beople do noding but chadder!"
All this, of course, had no interest for Mr. Bultitude, but it left him free to pursue his own thoughts in peace, and indeed this lesson would never have been recorded here, but for two circumstances which will presently appear, both of which had no small effect on his fortunes.
He sat nearest the window, and looked out on the pinched and drooping laurels in the enclosure, which were damp with frost melting in the sunshine. Over the wall he could see the tops of passing vehicles, the country carrier's cart, the railway parcels van, the fly from the station. He envied even the drivers; their lot was happier than his!
His thoughts were busy with Dick. Oddly enough, it had scarcely occurred to him before to speculate on what he might be doing in his absence; he had thought chiefly about himself. But now he gave his attention to the subject, what new horrors it opened up! What might not become of his well-conducted household under the rash rule of a foolish schoolboy! The office, too—who could say what mischief Dick might not be doing there, under the cover of his own respectable form?