“Quarrels are very painful to me,” said he. “I wish every one to live in
harmony under my roof. I will not deny Mr. Percival Manners had
provocation, but I wish to find a man who can raise himself above
provocation, and sacrifice his own feelings for the sake of peace and
concord.”

“I will do my best, sir.”

“You cannot say more, Mr. Weld. In that case I shall expect you
to-night, if you can get your things ready so soon.”

I not only succeeded in getting my things ready, but I found time to
call at the Benedict Club in Piccadilly, where I knew that I should find
Manners if he were still in town. There he was sure enough in the
smoking-room, and I questioned him, over a cigarette, as to his reasons
for throwing up his recent situation. “You don’t tell me that you are going to Dr. Phelps McCarthy’s Academy?”
he cried, staring at me in surprise. “My dear chap, it’s no use. You
can’t possibly remain there.”

“But I saw him, and he seemed the most courtly, inoffensive fellow. I
never met a man with more gentle manners.”

“He! oh, he’s all right. There’s no vice in him. Have you seen
Theophilus St. James?”

“I have never heard the name. Who is he?”

“Your colleague. The other master.”

“No, I have not seen him.”

“_He’s_ the terror. If you can stand him, you have either the spirit of
a perfect Christian or else you have no spirit at all. A more perfect
bounder never bounded.”

“But why does McCarthy stand it?”

My friend looked at me significantly through his cigarette smoke, and
shrugged his shoulders. “You will form your own conclusions about that. Mine were formed very
soon, and I never found occasion to alter them.”

“It would help me very much if you would tell me them.”

“When you see a man in his own house allowing his business to be ruined,
his comfort destroyed, and his authority defied by another man in a
subordinate position, and calmly submitting to it without so much as a
word of protest, what conclusion do you come to?”

“That the one has a hold over the other.”

Percival Manners nodded his head. “There you are! You’ve hit it first barrel. It seems to me that there’s
no other explanation which will cover the facts. At some period in his
life the little Doctor has gone astray. _Humanum est errare._ I have
even done it myself. But this was something serious, and the other man
got a hold of it and has never let go. That’s the truth. Blackmail is at
the bottom of it. But he had no hold over me, and there was no reason
why _I_ should stand his insolence, so I came away—and I very much
expect to see you do the same.”

For some time he talked over the matter, but he always came to the same
conclusion—that I should not retain my new situation very long. It was with no very pleasant feelings after this preparation that I
found myself face to face with the very man of whom I had received so
evil an account. Dr. McCarthy introduced us to each other in his study
on the evening of that same day immediately after my arrival at the
school. “This is your new colleague, Mr. St. James,” said he, in his genial,
courteous fashion. “I trust that you will mutually agree, and that I
shall find nothing but good feeling and sympathy beneath this roof.”

I shared the good Doctor’s hope, but my expectations of it were not
increased by the appearance of my _confrère_. He was a young,
bull-necked fellow about thirty years of age, dark-eyed and
black-haired, with an exceedingly vigorous physique. I have never seen a
more strongly built man, though he tended to run to fat in a way which
showed that he was in the worst of training. His face was coarse,
swollen, and brutal, with a pair of small black eyes deeply sunken in
his head. His heavy jowl, his projecting ears, and his thick bandy legs
all went to make up a personality which was as formidable as it was
repellent. “I hear you’ve never been out before,” said he, in a rude, brusque
fashion. “Well, it’s a poor life: hard work and starvation pay, as
you’ll find out for yourself.”

“But it has some compensations,” said the principal. “Surely you will
allow that, Mr. St. James?”

“Has it? I never could find them. What do you call compensations?”

“Even to be in the continual presence of youth is a privilege. It has
the effect of keeping youth in one’s own soul, for one reflects
something of their high spirits and their keen enjoyment of life.”

“Little beasts!” cried my colleague. “Come, come, Mr. St. James, you are too hard upon them.”

“I hate the sight of them! If I could put them and their blessed
copybooks and lexicons and slates into one bonfire I’d do it to-night.”

“This is Mr. St. James’s way of talking,” said the principal, smiling
nervously as he glanced at me. “You must not take him too seriously. Now, Mr. Weld, you know where your room is, and no doubt you have your
own little arrangements to make. The sooner you make them the sooner you
will feel yourself at home.”

It seemed to me that he was only too anxious to remove me at once from
the influence of this extraordinary colleague, and I was glad to go, for
the conversation had become embarrassing. And so began an epoch which always seems to me as I look back to it to
be the most singular in all my experience. The school was in many ways
an excellent one. Dr. Phelps McCarthy was an ideal principal. His
methods were modern and rational. The management was all that could be
desired. And yet in the middle of this well-ordered machine there
intruded the incongruous and impossible Mr. St. James, throwing
everything into confusion. His duties were to teach English and
mathematics, and how he acquitted himself of them I do not know, as our
classes were held in separate rooms. I can answer for it, however, that
the boys feared him and loathed him, and I know that they had good
reason to do so, for frequently my own teaching was interrupted by his
bellowings of anger, and even by the sound of his blows. Dr. McCarthy
spent most of his time in his class, but it was, I suspect, to watch
over the master rather than the boys, and to try to moderate his
ferocious temper when it threatened to become dangerous. It was in his bearing to the head master, however, that my colleague’s
conduct was most outrageous. The first conversation which I have
recorded proved to be typical of their intercourse. He domineered over
him openly and brutally. I have heard him contradict him roughly before
the whole school. At no time would he show him any mark of respect, and
my temper often rose within me when I saw the quiet acquiescence of the
old Doctor, and his patient tolerance of this monstrous treatment. And
yet the sight of it surrounded the principal also with a certain vague
horror in my mind, for supposing my friend’s theory to be correct—and I
could devise no better one—how black must have been the story which
could be held over his head by this man and, by fear of its publicity,
force him to undergo such humiliations.