Was
it not strange that he should wish to be so well informed, since he knew
that he was not the direct heir?”

“Very strange,” said I. “And now, Summers, if you will bring me my bills
and a new cheque-book, we will begin to get things into order.”




                     THE USHER OF LEA HOUSE SCHOOL


Mr. Lumsden, the senior partner of Lumsden and Westmacott, the
well-known scholastic and clerical agents, was a small, dapper man, with
a sharp, abrupt manner, a critical eye, and an incisive way of speaking. “Your name, sir?” said he, sitting pen in hand with his long, red-lined
folio in front of him. “Harold Weld.”

“Oxford or Cambridge?”

“Cambridge.”

“Honours?”

“No, sir.”

“Athlete?”

“Nothing remarkable, I am afraid.”

“Not a Blue?”

“Oh, no.”

Mr. Lumsden shook his head despondently and shrugged his shoulders in a
way which sent my hopes down to zero. “There is a very keen competition
for masterships, Mr. Weld,” said he. “The vacancies are few and the
applicants innumerable. A first-class athlete, oar, or cricketer, or a
man who has passed very high in his examinations, can usually find a
vacancy—I might say always in the case of the cricketer. But the average
man—if you will excuse the description, Mr. Weld—has a very great
difficulty, almost an insurmountable difficulty. We have already more
than a hundred such names upon our lists, and if you think it worth
while our adding yours, I daresay that in the course of some years we
may possibly be able to find you some opening which——”

He paused on account of a knock at the door. It was a clerk with a note. Mr. Lumsden broke the seal and read it. “Why, Mr. Weld,” said he, “this is really rather an interesting
coincidence. I understand you to say that Latin and English are your
subjects, and that you would prefer for a time to accept a place in an
elementary establishment, where you would have time for private study?”

“Quite so.”

“This note contains a request from an old client of ours, Dr. Phelps
McCarthy, of Willow Lea House Academy, West Hampstead, that I should at
once send him a young man who should be qualified to teach Latin and
English to a small class of boys under fourteen years of age. His
vacancy appears to be the very one which you are looking for. The terms
are not munificent—sixty pounds, board, lodging, and washing—but the
work is not onerous, and you would have the evenings to yourself.”

“That would do,” I cried, with all the eagerness of the man who sees
work at last after weary months of seeking. “I don’t know that it is quite fair to these gentlemen whose names have
been so long upon our list,” said Mr. Lumsden, glancing down at his open
ledger. “But the coincidence is so striking that I feel we must really
give you the refusal of it.”

“Then I accept it, sir, and I am much obliged to you.”

“There is one small provision in Dr. McCarthy’s letter. He stipulates
that the applicant must be a man with an imperturbably good temper.”

“I am the very man,” said I, with conviction. “Well,” said Mr. Lumsden, with some hesitation, “I hope that your temper
is really as good as you say, for I rather fancy that you may need it.”

“I presume that every elementary schoolmaster does.”

“Yes, sir, but it is only fair to you to warn you that there may be some
especially trying circumstances in this particular situation. Dr. Phelps
McCarthy does not make such a condition without some very good and
pressing reason.”

There was a certain solemnity in his speech which struck a chill in the
delight with which I had welcomed this providential vacancy. “May I ask the nature of these circumstances?” I asked. “We endeavour to hold the balance equally between our clients, and to be
perfectly frank with all of them. If I knew of objections to you I
should certainly communicate them to Dr. McCarthy, and so I have no
hesitation in doing as much for you. I find,” he continued, glancing
over the pages of his ledger, “that within the last twelve months we
have supplied no fewer than seven Latin masters to Willow Lea House
Academy, four of them having left so abruptly as to forfeit their
month’s salary, and none of them having stayed more than eight weeks.”

“And the other masters? Have they stayed?”

“There is only one other residential master, and he appears to be
unchanged. You can understand, Mr. Weld,” continued the agent, closing
both the ledger and the interview, “that such rapid changes are not
desirable from a master’s point of view, whatever may be said for them
by an agent working on commission. I have no idea why these gentlemen
have resigned their situations so early. I can only give you the facts,
and advise you to see Dr. McCarthy at once and to form your own
conclusions.”

Great is the power of the man who has nothing to lose, and it was
therefore with perfect serenity, but with a good deal of curiosity, that
I rang early that afternoon the heavy wrought-iron bell of the Willow
Lea House Academy. The building was a massive pile, square and ugly,
standing in its own extensive grounds, with a broad carriage-sweep
curving up to it from the road. It stood high, and commanded a view on
the one side of the grey roofs and bristling spires of Northern London,
and on the other of the well-wooded and beautiful country which fringes
the great city. The door was opened by a boy in buttons, and I was shown
into a well-appointed study, where the principal of the academy
presently joined me. The warnings and insinuations of the agent had prepared me to meet a
choleric and overbearing person—one whose manner was an insupportable
provocation to those who worked under him. Anything further from the
reality cannot be imagined. He was a frail, gentle creature,
clean-shaven and round-shouldered, with a bearing which was so courteous
that it became almost deprecating. His bushy hair was thickly shot with
grey, and his age I should imagine to verge upon sixty. His voice was
low and suave, and he walked with a certain mincing delicacy of manner. His whole appearance was that of a kindly scholar, who was more at home
among his books than in the practical affairs of the world. “I am sure that we shall be very happy to have your assistance, Mr.
Weld,” said he, after a few professional questions. “Mr. Percival
Manners left me yesterday, and I should be glad if you could take over
his duties to-morrow.”

“May I ask if that is Mr. Percival Manners of Selwyn?” I asked. “Precisely. Did you know him?”

“Yes; he is a friend of mine.”

“An excellent teacher, but a little hasty in his disposition. It was his
only fault. Now, in your case, Mr. Weld, is your own temper under good
control? Supposing for argument’s sake that I were to so far forget
myself as to be rude to you or to speak roughly or to jar your feelings
in any way, could you rely upon yourself to control your emotions?”

I smiled at the idea of this courteous, little, mincing creature
ruffling my nerves. “I think that I could answer for it, sir,” said I.