“Well, what can we learn from this parable?”
“We shall not know, sah. You telling us, after—we shall be knowing.”
“Use your minds. What lesson do you find in the parable?”
“We not virgins, sah.”
“Mistah Ramsee he nevah ask the thing he have not teach.”
“This is Mr. Williams, not Mr. Ramsay,” said Edward, whose confidence was increasing with the increasing tranquillity of the class. “I will give you three minutes in which to glance over the parable again before answering——”
“It mean—the wicked people shall perishing in efferlasting fires,” declaimed the German.
“Silence for three minutes.”
There was an uneasy silence broken suddenly by the opening of a side door. The woman teacher in the next classroom stood in the doorway and spoke in a contemptuous voice to Edward. “Will you please restrain your boys from shooting their pea-shooters at this door? The noise in the next room is most disturbing.”