“I guess he thinks he’s undertaken a big job.”
“Yes; it isn’t easy to teach school. I shouldn’t like it myself.”
“You could do it better than he.”
“Why could I?”
“You could lick any of us, easy.”
“A teacher needs more than that. He’s got to know something. I don’t know enough to teach this school,” said Phineas, modestly.
“The master’s a boy compared with you,” said Peter, who would have liked to receive the co-operation of Phineas.
“I know it,” said Phineas, quietly, “but he looks as if he might know something. If he knows enough to help me along in my studies, I would just as lief have him teacher as Mr. Barclay.”
“Then I wouldn’t,” said Peter.
“Nor I,” said John, who, though he rather disliked Allen Barclay, disliked Walter considerably more.