Ann Straggalls horrified Hazel upon this occasion by giving vent to one of her explosions, and then turning purple as she tried to hide her face.
“Ah, you’ll have to punish her,” said Mr Chute. “Oh, by-the-way, Miss Thorne—”
“If he would only go!” thought Hazel, for the girls were getting very lively and boisterous, seeing their teacher’s attention taken off, and catching a little of the infection from beyond the partition shutters.
“I say, you’ll have a deal of trouble over the school pence”—Mr Chute was a prophet in this case, though he did not know it—“they’ll try all sorts of plans to get out of paying—a few of them will; but don’t you be imposed upon by their excuses. It’s only a penny a week, you know. There’s the Simms’s never will pay, and they ought to be turned out of the schools, for it isn’t fair for some children to pay and some not, is it?”
“Of course not,” replied Hazel. “Oh, why won’t he go? Surely he must see that my time is wanted.”
Just then the noise in the boys’ school became furious, and Mr Chute made an effort to let his rebellious subjects know that, though invisible in body, he was present with them in spirit, by going on tiptoe across the school and rapping on one of the sliding shutters sharply with his knuckles.
The effect was magical, and he came back triumphant.
“That’s how I serve them,” he said, with a self-satisfied smirk. “They know I won’t stand any nonsense; and, I say, Miss Thorne, if you hear me using the cane, don’t you take any notice, you know. It’s good for them sometimes. You’ll have to use it yourself.”
“I hope not,” said Hazel quietly; and she glanced towards the door.
“Ah, but you will,” he said, laughing, and in profound ignorance of the fact that Feelier Potts was imitating his every action for the benefit of her class, even to going across and pretending to tap at the partition.