"Quite so. But in what way?"
My friend thought again.
"I can't remember anything particular about him," he said, "except that he was a holy terror—and the greatest man that ever lived!"
"But tell me something personal about him. How did his conversation impress you?"
"Conversation? Bless you, he never conversed with anybody. He just told them what he thought about a thing, and that settled it. Besides, I never exchanged a word with him in my life. But he was a great man."
"Didn't you meet him all the time you were at school?"
"Oh yes, I met him," replied my friend with feeling—"three or four times. And that reminds me, I can tell you something personal about him. The old swine was left-handed! A great man, a great man!"
Happy the warrior who can inspire worship on such sinister foundations as these!
The other kind has to prevail by another method—the Machiavellian. As a successful Headmaster of my acquaintance once brutally but truthfully expressed it: "You simply have to employ a certain amount of low cunning if you are going to keep a school going at all." And he was right. A man unendowed with the divine gift of rudeness would, if he spent his time answering the criticisms or meeting the objections of colleagues or parents or even boys, have no time for anything else. So he seeks refuge either in finesse or flight. If a parent rings him up on the telephone, he murmurs