“The Cape? Why, you know they have not got one. Fancy a Hottentot Academy!”
“Well then, Coromandel?”
“None there.”
“Java?”
“None either.”
“What, no Academy at all in the East? Poor Orientals!”
“They manage to get along pretty well without.”
“What outer barbarians!”
I bade the old usher good-bye, thinking what a blessing it would be if I could send the Academy to civilise Borneo.
Two years later the Prix de Rome was mine, but poor old Pingard was dead. It was a pity.