Lastly, Mr. Klotz. Mr. Klotz may be described as a Teutonic survival—a survival of the days when it was de rigueur to have the French language taught by a foreigner of some kind. Not necessarily by a Frenchman—that would have been pandering too slavishly to Continental idiosyncrasy—but at least by some one who could only speak broken English. Mr. Klotz was a Prussian, so possessed all the necessary qualifications.
His disciplinary methods were modelled upon those of the Prussian Army, of which he had been a distinguished ornament—a fact of which he was fond of reminding his pupils, and which had long been regarded by those guileless infants as one of the most valuable weapons in their armoury of time-wasting devices.
Mr. Klotz, not being a resident master, had no special classroom or key: he merely visited each form-room in turn. He expected to find every boy in his seat ready for work upon his arrival; and as he was accustomed to enforce his decrees at the point of the bayonet—or its scholastic equivalent—sharp scouts and reliable sentries were invariably posted to herald his approach.
Behold him this particular morning marching into Remove A form-room, which was situated at the top of a block of buildings on the south side of the quadrangle, with the superb assurance and grace of a Prussian subaltern entering a beer-hall.
Having reached his desk, Mr. Klotz addressed his pupils.
"He who rount the corner looked when op the stairs I game," he announced, "efter lonch goms he!"
The form, some of them still breathless from their interrupted rag, merely looked down their noses with an air of seraphic piety.
"Who was de boy who did dat?" pursued Mr. Klotz.
No reply.
"Efter lonch," trumpeted Mr. Klotz, "goms eferypoty!"