“And tell me, are these all the schools there are?” he would ask, sitting with various printed and copygraphed papers in his hand.
“All we can recommend,” the genteel young man in charge would say.
“All you are paid to recommend?” Oswald would ask.
“They are the best schools available,” the genteel young man would fence.
“Bah!” Oswald would say.
A bad opening....
From the ruffled scholastic agents Oswald would go on in a mood that was bound to ruffle the hopeful school proprietor. Indeed some of these interviews became heated so soon and so extravagantly that there was a complete failure to state even the most elementary facts of the case. Lurid misunderstandings blazed. Uganda got perplexingly into the dispute. From one admirable establishment in Eastbourne Oswald retreated with its principal calling after him from his dignified portico, “I wouldn’t take the little nigger at any price.”
When his doctor saw him after this last encounter he told him; “You are not getting on as well as you ought to do. You are running about too much. You ought to be resting completely.”
So Oswald took a week’s rest from school visiting before he tried again.