Love and Mr. Lewisham

by H. G. Wells

Lewisham was not aware that the waterproof collar had found a sympathetic observer.

“We give courses of lectures, and have an examination in the theory and practice of education. It is the only examination in the theory and practice of education for men engaged in middle and upper class teaching in this country. Except the Teacher’s Diploma. And so few come—not two hundred a year. Mostly governesses. The men prefer to teach by rule of thumb, you know. English characteristic—rule of thumb. It doesn’t do to say anything of course—but there’s bound to be—something happen—something a little disagreeable—somewhen if things go on as they do. American schools keep on getting better—German too. What used to do won’t do now. I tell this to you, you know, but it doesn’t do to tell everyone. It doesn’t do. It doesn’t do to do anything. So much has to be considered. However ... But you’d do well to get a diploma and make yourself efficient. Though that’s looking ahead.”

He spoke of looking ahead with an apologetic laugh as though it was an amiable weakness of his. He turned from such abstruse matters and furnished Lewisham with the particulars of the college diplomas, and proceeded to other possibilities. “There’s private tuition,” he said. “Would you mind a backward boy? Then we are occasionally asked for visiting masters. Mostly by girls’ schools. But that’s for older men—married men, you know.”

“I am married,” said Lewisham.

“Eh?” said the College of Pedagogues, startled.

“I am married,” said Lewisham.

“Dear me,” said the College of Pedagogues gravely, and regarding Mr. Lewisham over gold-rimmed glasses. “Dear me! And I am more than twice your age, and I am not married at all. One-and-twenty! Have you—have you been married long?”

“A few weeks,” said Lewisham.

“That’s very remarkable,” said the College of Pedagogues. “Very interesting.... Really! Your wife must be a very courageous young person.... Excuse me! You know—You will really have a hard fight for a position. However—it certainly makes you eligible for girls’ schools; it does do that. To a certain extent, that is.”

The evidently enhanced respect of the College of Pedagogues pleased Lewisham extremely. But his encounter with the Medical, Scholastic, and Clerical Agency that holds by Waterloo Bridge was depressing again, and after that he set out to walk home. Long before he reached home he was tired, and his simple pride in being married and in active grapple with an unsympathetic world had passed. His surrender on the religious question had left a rankling bitterness behind it; the problem of the clothes was acutely painful. He was still far from a firm grasp of the fact that his market price was under rather than over one hundred pounds a year, but that persuasion was gaining ground in his mind.