"What news?" he asked. "How's the invalid?"
"The invalid has trimmed a hat," Hilda answered. "How did you get on to-day, dear?"
He sighed again. "Young Simpson isn't coming back next term. So much for Simpson!"
"So much the less for us," she said. "Why not?"
"Because he's a curate and puffed with vanity, and I let him choose 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' last lesson and pretended he didn't squeak. He's so highly satisfied with his elocutionary graces that he thinks he has nothing more to learn. That's the worst of the elocution pupils; if you encourage them, they get conceited and give you up; and if you don't encourage them, they get disheartened and give you up. Pupils——" He spread his hands seeking epithets to stigmatise pupils.
"And the Mayor?" said Bee. "It was the Mayor's morning with you, wasn't it?"
"The Mayor, my dear, was, if possible, more hopeless than ever. He talks through his teeth, and as to his finals, you never get even a g. Half the forty minutes go in grammar lessons—not to be mentioned of course. I've been working on his Address with him now for a fortnight, and he still says 'Gentlemen, you was.'"
She laughed. "There's nothing like leather," she said. The Mayor had made his fortune out of boots. "It seems only the other day we used to see his wife scrubbing her doorstep when we went through Hippodrome Place."
"Anyhow his wife carries the position better than he does," Hilda put in. "You might almost take her for a lady if you looked at her in a hurry."
"And if you didn't hear her speak," added the Professor. His gaze wandered to the dish, rested on the pie, and gladdened. "A Perrin's?" he exclaimed. "Good children! I'm hungry." He rubbed his hands, and shuffled to the table. "Let's sit down. Yes," he went on—but he spoke slowly now, because to cut a Perrin's was a rite—"yes, young Simpson is leaving. And Miss Kimber's class—well, you know about Miss Kimber's class! Only seven piano thumpers now, as against twelve at midsummer. If it weren't for the private lessons at the room, it would hardly pay to go over to Great Hunby on Mondays and Thursdays any more. Hilda, my dear, did I give you a piece of the jelly?"