"Sir?" "(BELL TOLLING)" "Sir?" "(SIGHING)" "Roll the wrists away from the ball." "Like so." "And don't break them like that." "Now swing." "Too quick." "Slow back, stiff left arm, head down." "It's no good just whacking the ball as if you were the headmaster and the ball was you, it'll never go more than 50 yards if you do." "Try it again." "Get a rhythm." "A good golf swing is a matter of aesthetics, not brute strength." "What's the matter?" "I think we've made a tear in the carpet, sir." "Nonsense." "It was there already." "Do I know you?" "No, sir." "What's your name?" "Taplow." "Taplow?" "No, I don't." "You're not a scientist, I gather." "No, sir." "I am still in the lower fifth." "I can't specialise until next term." "Well, that's to say if I've got my remove." "Don't you know if you've got your remove yet?" "No, sir." "Mr Crocker-Harris doesn't tell us the results" "like the other masters." "Oh, why not?" "Well, you know what he's like, sir." "I believe there is a rule that form results should only be announced by the headmaster on the last day of term." "Yes." "But who else pays any attention to it except Mr Crocker-Harris?" "Well, I don't, I admit." "But that's no criterion." "So you've got to wait until tomorrow to know your fate, have you?" "Yes, sir." "And what if the answer is favourable?" "What then?" "Oh." "Science, sir, of course." "Oh, yes, we get all the slackers." "I'm extremely interested in science, sir." "Are you?" "I'm not." "Well, not at least in the science I have to teach." "Well, anyway, sir, it's a good deal more exciting than this muck." "And what's this muck?" "Aeschylus, sir." "The Agamemnon." "And your considered view is that the Agamemnon of Aeschylus is muck, is it?" "Well, I wouldn't say the play is muck, exactly." "I suppose it's quite a good plot, really." "Wife murdering her husband and having a lover and all that." "I only meant the way it's taught to us." "Just a lot of Greek words strung together and 50 lines if you get them wrong." "You sound a little bitter, Taplow." "I am rather, sir." "Kept in, eh?" "No, sir." "Extra work." "Extra work on the last day of school?" "Yes, sir." "And I might be playing golf." "You'd think he'd have enough to do himself considering he's leaving tomorrow for good." "But, oh, no, I missed a day last week when I had flu, so hear I am, and look at the weather, sir." "Yes, bad luck." "Still, there's one consolation." "You're pretty well bound to get your remove for being a good boy taking extra work." "Well, I'm not so sure, sir." "That would be true of the ordinary masters." "They just wouldn't dare not give a chap a remove after his taking extra work." "It would be such a bad advertisement for them." "But those sort of rules don't apply to the Crock." "Uh, Mr Crocker-Harris." "I asked him outright yesterday if he'd given me a remove" "and you know what he said sir?" "No, what?" "(MIMICKING) "My dear Taplow," ""I have given you exactly what you deserve." ""No less and certainly no more."" "Do you know, I think he may have marked me down rather than up for taking extra work." "I mean, the man's barely human, sir." "Sorry, sir." "Have I gone too far?" "Yes, much too far." "Sorry, sir, I got sort of carried away." "Evidently." "Taplow?" "Yes, sir." "What was that he said to you again?" "Just repeat that, would you?" ""My dear Taplow," ""I have given you exactly what you deserve." ""No less and certainly no more."" "It's not a bit like him." "Read your Aeschylus and be quiet." "(SIGHING) Aeschylus!" "What time did he tell you to be here?" "Six o'clock, sir." "Well, he's 10 minutes late." "Why don't you cut?" "You could still get nine holes in before lock-up." "Cut the Crock?" "Uh, Mr Crocker-Harris?" "I couldn't do that." "I shouldn't think it's ever been done in the whole time he's been here." "God knows what would happen if I did." "He'd probably follow me home or something." "Well, I must admit I envy him the effect he seems to have on you lot." "You seem scared to death of him." "What does he do?" "Beat you or something?" "Oh, good Lord, no." "He's not a sadist, like one or two of the others." "I beg your pardon?" "A sadist, sir." "It's someone who gets pleasure out of giving pain." "Ah!" "Indeed." "Weren't you going to say that some of the others were..." "Well, of course, they are, sir." "I won't mention names, but you know them as well as I do." "I think most masters think we boys don't understand a thing, but dash it, sir, you're different." "You're young." "Well, comparatively." "And you're science." "And you canvassed for Labour in the last election." "You must know what sadism is." "Good Lord, what are public schools coming to, eh?" "Well, the Crock isn't a sadist, that's what I'm saying." "He wouldn't be so frightening if he were." "Because at least that would show he had some feelings." "But he hasn't." "He's all shrivelled up inside like a nut." "And he seems to hate people to like him." "It's funny, that." "I don't know any other master that doesn't like being liked." "And I don't know any boy that doesn't trade on that very foible." "Well, it's natural, sir." "But not with the Crock..." "Mr Crocker-Harris." "Mr Crocker-Harris." "The funny thing is that, in spite of everything, I do rather like him." "I can't help it." "And, sometimes, I think he sees it." "And that seems to shrivel him up even more." "I'm sure you're exaggerating." "No, sir." "I'm not." "In form the other day, he made one of his little classical jokes." "Of course, nobody laughed because nobody understood it, myself included." "Still, I knew he meant it as funny, so I laughed." "Not out of sucking up, sir, I swear, but ordinary common politeness and feeling a bit sorry for him having made a dud joke." "Now, I can't remember what the joke was." "Let's say it was "benedictus, benedicatur, benedictine."" "Now, you laugh, sir." "Ha, ha." ""My dear Taplow," ""you laughed at my little pun, I noticed." ""I must say I am flattered at the evident advance your Latinity has made" ""that you should so readily have understood" ""what the rest of the form did not." ""Perhaps you would be good enough to explain it to them" ""so that they can share your pleasure." ""Come along, Taplow." ""Do not be so selfish as to keep a good joke to yourself." ""Tell the others..."" "Oh, Lord." "Ah, hello." "Hello." "Do you think she heard?" "No." "I think she did, she was standing there quite a time." "If she did and tells him, there goes my remove." "Nonsense!" "Waiting for my husband?" "TAPLOW:" "Uh, yes." "He's at the Bursar's, he might be there quite a time." "If I were you, I'd go." "Well, he said most particularly I was to come." "Well, why don't you run away for a quarter of an hour and come back." "Supposing he gets here before me?" "I'll take the blame." "Well, I'll tell you what, you can do something for him." "Why don't you take this prescription to the chemist and get it made up." "All right, Mrs Crocker-Harris." "And while you're there you might as well slip into Stewart's and have an ice." "Here." "Catch." "Thanks, awfully." "Oh, Taplow." "Yes?" "I had a letter from my father today in which he mentioned he once had the pleasure" "of meeting your mother." "Oh, really?" "Yes, it was at some fete or other in Bradford." "My uncle, Sir William Bartop, had to make a speech and so did your mother." "My father met her afterwards at tea." "Oh, really?" "He said he found her quite charming." "Yes." "She's jolly good at those sort of functions." "I mean, I'm sure she found him charming, too." "I'd better be going." "So long." "Thank you for coming." "That's all right." "You're staying to dinner?" "If I may." "If you may?" "Give me a cigarette." "You haven't given it away, I see." "What?" "Did you think I would?" "Frankly, yes." "Luckily, it's a man's case." "I don't suppose any of your girlfriends would want it." "Don't be silly." "Well, where have you been all this week?" "Correcting exam papers, making reports, you know what the end of term is like." "Yes, I do know what the end of term's like." "But even Andrew has managed this last week to take a few hours off to say goodbye to people." "I really have been appallingly busy." "Besides, I'm coming to see you in Bradford." "Not for over a month." "Andrew doesn't take up his new job till September 1st." "That was one of the things I had to tell you." "Ah!" "I'm meant to be in Devonshire in September." "Who with?" "My family." "Surely you can go earlier, can't you?" "Go in August." "It'll be difficult." "Then you better come to me in August." "But Andrew will still be there." "Yes." "No, I think I can manage September." "I think that will be better from everybody's point of view." "Except that I shan't see you for six weeks." "Well, you'll survive that all right." "Yes, I'll survive it, but not as easily as you will." "I haven't much pride, have I?" "Oh, Frank, darling, I love you so much." "(LAUGHS) You're very nervous." "That screen." "You can't see people coming in." "Oh, yes, that reminds me, what were you and Taplow up to just now when I came in?" "Making fun of my husband?" "I'm afraid so, yes." "It sounded rather a good imitation." "I must get him to do it for me sometime." "(CHUCKLING)" "Very naughty of you to encourage him." "Yes, it was." "Bad for discipline." "Exactly." "Currying favour with the boys, too." "My God, how easy it is to be popular." "I've only been a master for three years and already I've slipped into an act and a vernacular" "I don't seem to be able to get out of." "Why can't anyone ever be natural with the little blighters?" "I don't suppose they'd like it if you were." "I don't see why not." "No one seems to have tried it yet anyway." "I suppose the trouble is we're all too scared of them." "Either one is forced into an attitude of false jocular bonhomie, like myself, or the sort of soulless, petty tyranny your husband uses to protect himself against the lower fifth." "He'd never be popular, whatever he did." "Possibly not." "He ought never to have become a schoolmaster, really." "Why did he?" "It was his vocation, he said." "He was sure he'd make a success of it, especially when he got this job first go off." "(SCOFFING) Fine success he's made, hasn't he?" "You should have stopped him." "How was I to know?" "He talked about getting a house, then a headmastership." "(CHUCKLING) The Crock a headmaster." "What a pretty thought." "Yes, it's funny to think of now, all right." "But he wasn't always a Crock." "He had a bit more gumption once, or so I thought." "Don't let's talk about him any more." "It's too depressing." "I'm sorry for him." "He's not sorry for himself." "So why would you be?" "It's me you should be sorry for." "I am." "Then show me." "What have you been doing all day?" "Hmm?" "Seeing other masters' wives." "Saying fond farewells." "I've worked off 12." "I've another seven to do tomorrow." "Oh, you poor thing." "I don't envy you." "It's the housemasters' wives that are the worst." "They're all so damn patronising." "You should have heard Betty Carstairs." ""My dear, it's such terrible bad luck on you both," ""that your husband should get this heart trouble" ""just when, if only he'd stayed on," ""he'd have been bound to have got a house."" ""After all, he's considerably senior to my Arthur as it is," ""they couldn't have gone on passing him over, could they?"" "There's a word for Betty Carstairs, my dear," "I'd hesitate to employ before a lady." "She's got her eye on you." "Betty Carstairs?" "What utter rubbish!" "Well, of course she has." "I saw you at the concert." "Don't think I didn't notice." "Millie, darling, really!" "I detest the woman." "Then why were you in her box at Lord's?" "Carstairs invited me." "It was a good place to see the match from." "Yes, I'm sure it was." "Much better than the grandstand." "Oh, my God!" "It's all right." "Don't apologise." "We gave the seat away, as it happens." "I'm most terribly sorry." "It's all right." "We couldn't afford a box, you see." "It wasn't that." "You know it wasn't that." "It's just that I..." "I clean forgot." "Well, it's funny you didn't forget the Carstairs' invitation." "Millie, don't be a fool." "It's you who are the fool." "Have you never been in love?" "I know you're not in love with me, but have you never been in love with anyone?" "Don't you realise the torture you inflict on someone who loves you when you do a thing like that?" "Look, I've said I'm sorry." "I don't see what more there is I can say." "Why not the truth?" "The truth is, I clean forgot." "No, the truth is you had something better to do and why not say it." "All right, believe it if you like." "It happens to be a lie, but believe it all the same." "Only for God's sake, stop this." "Well, then, for God's sake, show me some pity." "Do you think it's any pleasanter for me to believe that you cut me because you forgot?" "Do you think that doesn't hurt either?" "Oh, damn." "I was so determined to be brave, not mention Lord's." "Why did I?" "Frank, there's only one thing I want you to tell me." "Just tell me you're not running away from me." "It's all I want to hear." "I'm coming to Bradford." "I think if you don't, I'll kill myself." "I'm coming to Bradford." "Oh!" "(CLEARING THROAT)" "Oh, you're back." "Is Taplow here?" "I sent him to the chemist to get your prescription." "What prescription?" "Your heart medicine." "Don't you remember?" "You told me this morning you had run out." "Of course I remember, my dear, but there was no need to send Taplow for it." "If you'd telephoned the chemist, he would have sent it round in plenty of time." "He knows the prescription." "Now Taplow will be late, and I'm so pressed for time I hardly know how to fit him in." "Ah, Hunter!" "How are you?" "I'm very well, thank you." "(CLEARING THROAT) Most kind of you to drop in, but, as Millie should have warned you, I'm expecting a pupil for extra work." "He's staying for dinner, Andrew." "Good." "Then I shall see something of you." "However, when Taplow returns I'm sure you won't mind..." "No, of course, not." "In fact, I'll make myself scarce now" "if you'd rather..." "No, there's no need for that." "Sit down." "Do." "Thank you." "(BELL TOLLING)" "Will you smoke?" "I don't, as you know, but" "Millie does." "Millie, give our guest a cigarette." "I haven't got one, I'm afraid." "I've had to cadge from him." "We expected you at Lord's, Hunter." "Yes, I'm most dreadfully sorry." "I..." "He forgot, Andrew." "Imagine." "Forgot?" "Not everyone is blessed with your super-human memory, you see." "I really can't apologise enough." "Please don't bother to mention it." "On the second day, we managed to sell the seat to a certain Dr Lambert, who wore, I regret to say, the colours of the opposing faction, but who, otherwise, seemed a passably agreeable person." "You liked him, didn't you, Millie?" "Yes, very much." "I found him quite charming." "A charming old gentleman." "Uh, you have had tea?" "Yes." "Thank you." "Is there any other refreshment I can offer you?" "No, thank you." "Would it interest you to see the new timetable" "I've drafted for next term?" "Yes, very much." "I didn't know you drafted our timetables." "Didn't you?" "I have done so for the last 15 years." "Of course, they're always issued in mimeograph under the headmaster's signature." "What form do you take?" "Upper fifth science." "There you are, that's the general picture." "On the back, you will see each form specified under separate headings." "There, that's a new idea of mine." "Millie, this might interest you." "You know it bores me to death." "Millie has no head for this sort of work." "Now, there you see, you can follow the upper fifth science throughout every day of the week." "Well, I think this is a really wonderful job." "Thank you." "It has the merit of clarity, I think." "I don't know what they'll do without you." "They'll find somebody else, I expect." "What sort of a job is it that you're going to?" "Hasn't Millie told you?" "She said it was a sort of a..." "A private school." "It's a crammer's for backward boys, run by an old Oxford contemporary of mine who lives in Dorset." "The work will not be so arduous as here." "And my doctor seems to think that I will be able to undertake it without...danger." "It really is the most rotten bad luck, I'm awfully sorry." "My dear Hunter, there's nothing whatever to be sorry for." "I'm looking forward to the change." "ANDREW:" "Come in." "Good, Taplow." "You've been running, I see." "Yes, sir." "There was a queue at the chemist's, I expect." "Yes, sir." "And, doubtless," "an even longer one at Stewart's." "Yes, sir." "I mean, no, sir." "I mean, yes, sir." "You were late yourself, Andrew." "Exactly, and for that I apologise, Taplow." "Oh, that's all right, sir." "Luckily, we still have a good hour left before lock-up, so nothing has been lost." "I must go and see to dinner." "Can I take the shortcut across the garden?" "I'm going back to my digs." "Yes, of course." "Come back soon." "If Andrew's not finished, we can sit in the garden." "Right." "Taplow is desirous of obtaining a remove from my form, Hunter, so that he can spend the rest of his career here playing happily with the crucibles, retorts and Bunsen burners of your science fifth." "Ah!" "Has he?" "Has he what?" "Got his remove?" "He has obtained exactly what he deserves." "No less and certainly no more." "Line 1399." "Begin." "Chorus." "We" "are surprised at..." "We marvel at." "We marvel at thy tongue," "how bold thou art," "that you..." "Thou." "Thou" "can..." "Canst." "Canst boastfully speak..." "Utter such a boastful speech." "Utter such a boastful speech over" "the bloody corpse of the husband you have slain." "Taplow, I presume you are using a different text to mine." "No, sir." "That is strange for the line, as I have it, reads," "(READING ANCIENT GREEK)" "However diligently I search, I can discover no "bloody", no "corpse", no "you have slain"." "Simply "husband"." "Yes, sir, that's right, sir." "Then why do you invent words that simply are not there?" "Well, I thought they sounded better, sir." "More exciting." "After all, she did kill her husband, sir." "She's just been revealed with his dead body and Cassandra's weltering in gore." "I'm delighted at this evidence, Taplow, of your interest in the rather more lurid aspects of dramaturgy, but I feel I must remind you that you're supposed to be construing Greek, not collaborating with Aeschylus." "Yes, but still, sir." "Translator's licence, sir." "I didn't get anything wrong." "And, after all, it is a play and not just a bit of Greek construe." "(CLEARING THROAT)" "I seem to detect a note of end of term in your remarks." "I'm not denying that the Agamemnon is a play." "It is perhaps the greatest play ever written." "I wonder how many people in the form think that." "Sorry, sir." "Shall I go on, sir?" "Shall I go on, sir?" "When I was a very young man, only two years older than you are now, Taplow," "I wrote, for my own pleasure, a translation of the Agamemnon." "A very free translation, I remember, in rhyming couplets." "The whole Agamemnon?" "In verse?" "That must have been hard work, sir." "It was hard work." "But I derived great joy from it." "The play had so excited and moved me, that I wished to communicate," "however imperfectly, some of that emotion to others." "When I had finished it, I remember I thought it very beautiful, almost more beautiful than the original." "Was it ever published, sir?" "Hmm?" "No." "Yesterday, I looked for the manuscript while I was packing my papers." "I failed to find it." "I fear it is lost, like so many other things, lost for good." "Hard luck, sir." "Shall I go on, sir?" "No, go back and get that last line right." "Ahem." "That thou canst utter such a boastful speech over thy husband." "Yes, and now, if you'll be so kind, you will do the line again without the facial contortion which you just found necessary to accompany it." "(TELEPHONE RINGING)" "(CLEARING THROAT)" "Crocker-Harris." "I've caught you in." "I'm so glad." "I hope I'm not disturbing you." "Well, I am taking a pupil in extra work." "On the penultimate day of term." "That argues great conscientiousness on your part or considerable backwardness on his." "Perhaps a combination of both, headmaster." "Oh, quite so, but as this is my only chance of speaking to you before tomorrow," "I think perhaps your pupil will be good enough to excuse us." "I could call on you now." "Well, it is my only opportunity..." "Quite so." "In five minutes, then, if that is convenient?" "Very well, headmaster." "The headmaster is coming round to see me." "So I am afraid I am obliged to terminate this lesson." "Ah!" "Well, I'd better go, hadn't I, sir?" "I mean, I don't want to be in the way, sir." "You will please explain to your father exactly what occurred over the lost hour." "And tell him that I shall, in due course, be writing to him to return the money involved." "Yes, sir, but please don't bother, sir." "I know it's all right, sir." "Thank you, sir." "Who was that on the phone?" "The headmaster, he's coming round." "Well, don't tell him I'm in." "The fish pie isn't in the oven yet." "(EXHALING)" "Come in." "Sorry to disturb your labours, Crocker-Harris." "Not at all, sir." "But my time is limited and I needed to speak to you for a few minutes before the end of term." "By the way, have the Gilberts called on you yet?" "The Gilberts, sir?" "Who are they?" "Gilbert is your successor with the lower fifth." "He's down here today with his wife." "And as they will be taking over this flat," "I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind if they came in to look it over." "Of course not." "I told you about him, I think." "He's a very brilliant, young man, and won exceptionally high honours at Oxford." "Yes, so I understand, sir." "Oh, not, of course, as high as the honours you yourself won there." "He didn't, for instance, win the Chancellor's prize for Latin verse or the Gaisford." "He won the Hertford Latin, then?" "No." "Did you win that, too?" "It's sometimes rather hard to remember that you are, perhaps, the most brilliant classical scholar we've ever had at the school." "You're very kind." "Oh, hard to remember, I mean, because of your other activities." "Your brilliant work on the school timetable, for instance, and also for your heroic battle for so long and against such odds with the soul-destroying lower fifth." "I have not found my soul to have been destroyed by the lower fifth, headmaster." "I was joking, of course." "Oh, I see." "Is your wife in?" "No, not at the moment." "I shall have a chance of saying goodbye to her tomorrow." "I am rather glad I've got you to myself, I have a delicate matter..." "Two rather delicate matters to broach." "Please sit down." "Thank you." "Now, you've been with us, in all, 18 years, haven't you?" "It's extremely unlucky that you should have had to retire at so comparatively an early age, and so short a time before you would have been eligible for a pension." "(CLEARING THROAT)" "You have decided, then, not to award me a pension?" "Oh, not I, my dear fellow." "It has nothing at all to do with me." "It's the governors who, I'm afraid, have been forced to turn down your application." "I put your case to them as well as I could but they decided, with regret, that they couldn't make an exception to the rule." "I thought..." "My wife thought that an exception was made some five years ago." "Ah, in the case of Buller, you mean?" "True, but the circumstances with Buller were quite remarkable." "It was, after all, in playing rugger against the school" "that he received that injury." "Yes, I remember." "And then the governors received a petition from boys, old boys and parents with over 500 signatures." "I would have signed that petition myself, but, through some oversight, I was not asked." "Splendid fellow, Buller." "Splendid and doing very well now, too, I gather." "I'm delighted to hear it." "Oh, your own case, of course, is equally deserving, if not more so, for Buller was a younger man." "But, unfortunately, rules are rules and they are not made to be broken every few years." "That, at any rate, is the governors' view." "I quite understand." "I knew you would." "Now, might I ask you a rather impertinent question?" "Certainly." "You have, I take it, private means." "My wife has some." "Ah, yes." "Your wife has often spoken of her family connections." "I understand her father has a business in Bradford, isn't it?" "Yes, he runs a men's clothing shop in the arcade." "Indeed." "Your wife's remarks had led me to imagine something a little more..." "Extensive." "My father-in-law made a settlement on my wife at the time of our marriage." "She has about 300 a year of her own, I have nothing." "Is that the answer to your question, headmaster?" "Yes." "Thank you for your frankness." "Now, this private school you're going to." "My salary at the crammer's is to be £200 a year." "Oh, quite so, with board and lodging, of course." "For eight months of the year." "Yes, I see." "Uh, there is, as you know, the School Benevolent Fund that deals with cases of actual hardship." "There will be no actual hardship, headmaster." "No, I'm glad you take that view." "I must admit, though, that I'd hoped your own means had proved a little more ample." "Your wife had certainly led me to suppose..." "I'm not denying that a pension would have been very welcome, headmaster, but I see no reason to quarrel with the governors' decision." "Now, what is the other delicate matter that you have to discuss?" "Well, it concerns the arrangements at prize-giving tomorrow." "You are, of course, prepared to say a few words?" "I had assumed you would call on me to do so." "Quite so, it is always done." "And I know the boys appreciate the custom." "I have already made a few notes on what I am going to say." "Perhaps you'd care to..." "Oh, no, no, no." "That isn't necessary at all." "I know I can trust your discretion, not to say your wit." "It will be, I know, a very moving moment for you, indeed for us all." "But, as I'm sure you realise, it is far better to prevent these occasions from becoming too heavy and distressing." "You know how little the boys appreciate sentiment." "I do." "That is why I've planned my own reference to you at the end of my speech to be rather more light and jocular than I would otherwise have made it." "I quite understand." "I too, have prepared a few little jokes and puns for my speech." "One a play of words on vale, farewell, and Wally, the Christian name of a backward boy in my class," "is, I think, rather happy." "Yes." "(LAUGHING) Oh, very neat." "That should go down extremely well." "I'm glad you like it." "Well, now, I have a particular favour to ask of you in connection with the ceremony and I know I shall not have to ask in vain." "Fletcher, as you know, is leaving, too." "Yes, he's going into the City, they tell me." "Yes." "He is, of course, considerably junior to you." "He's only been with us, let me see, five years now." "But he has done great things for our cricket." "Positive wonders when one remembers what doldrums we were in before he came." "Our win at Lord's this year was certainly most inspiriting." "Exactly." "Now," "I'm sure that tomorrow the boys will make the occasion of his farewell speech a tremendous demonstration of gratitude." "The applause might go on for minutes." "You know how the boys feel about Lord's." "And I seriously doubt my ability to cut it short, or even, I must admit, the propriety of trying to do so." "And now you see the quandary in which I am placed." "Perfectly." "You wish to refer to me, and for me to make my speech, before you come to Fletcher." "It is extremely awkward and I feel wretched about asking it of you, but, after all, a climax is what one must try to work up to on these occasions." "Naturally, headmaster, I wouldn't wish to provide an anti-climax." "My dear fellow, you mustn't take it amiss the boys in applauding Fletcher for several minutes, and yourself for not quite so long, won't be making any personal demonstration between you." "It will be quite impersonal, I assure you." "Quite impersonal." "I understand." "I knew you would." "And I can hardly tell you how wisely I think you have chosen." "Well, now, as that is all my business, I think perhaps I'd better be getting along." "This has been a terribly busy day for me." "For you, too, I imagine." "Yes." "Ah, headmaster, how good of you to drop in." "My dear Mrs Crocker-Harris, how are you?" "You're looking extremely well, I must say." "Has anyone ever told you, Crocker-Harris, you have a very attractive wife?" "Many people, sir." "But then, I hardly need to be told." "Can we persuade you to stay a few moments and have a drink, headmaster?" "It's so rarely we get the pleasure of seeing you." "Unfortunately, dear lady, I was just on the point of leaving." "I have two frantic parents waiting for me at home." "But you are dining with us, tomorrow, both of you, aren't you?" "Yes, indeed, and so looking forward to it." "I'm so glad." "We can say our sad farewells then." "Au revoir, Crocker-Harris, and thank you very much." "Don't forget to take your medicine, dear." "No." "Lucky invalid, to have such a very charming nurse." "MILLIE:" "I don't know what to say to all these compliments, headmaster." "I don't believe you mean a word of them." "HEADMASTER:" "Every word." "Till tomorrow, then?" "Goodbye." "MILLIE:" "Goodbye." "(DOOR CLOSING)" "Well?" "Do we get it?" "Get what?" "The pension, of course." "Do we get it?" "No." "My God!" "Why not?" "It's against the rules." "Buller got it, didn't he?" "Buller got it?" "What's the idea of giving it to him and not to us?" "The governors are afraid of establishing a precedent." "The mean old brutes!" "What I wouldn't like to say to them." "What did you say?" "Just sat there and made a joke in Latin, I suppose?" "There wasn't very much I could say in Latin or any other language." "Oh, wasn't there?" "Well, I'd have said it, all right." "I wouldn't have just sat there twiddling my thumbs taking it from that old phoney of a headmaster." "But then, of course, I'm not a man." "What do they expect you to live on?" "My money, I suppose." "There has never been any question of that." "I shall be perfectly able to support myself." "Yourself?" "Doesn't the marriage service say something about the husband supporting a wife?" "Doesn't it?" "You ought to know." "Yes, it does." "And how do you expect to do that on 200 a year?" "I shall do my utmost to save some of it." "You are welcome to it, if I can." "Thank you for precisely nothing." "What else did the old fool have to say?" "The headmaster wishes me to make my speech tomorrow before instead of after Fletcher." "Oh, yes." "Yes, I knew he was going to ask you that." "You knew?" "He asked my advice a week ago." "I said go ahead." "I knew you wouldn't mind." "And as there isn't a Mrs Fletcher to make me look a fool," "I didn't give two hoots." "(KNOCKING ON DOOR)" "Come in." "Mr Crocker-Harris?" "Yes?" "Oh, is it Mr and Mrs Gilbert?" "The headmaster said you might look in." "How do you do." "I do hope we're not disturbing you." "Not at all." "Uh, this is my wife." "How do you do." "How do you do." "Mr and Mrs Gilbert are our successors to this flat, my dear." "Of course." "How nice to meet you both." "How do you do." "Um, we really won't keep you more than a second." "My wife thought that as we were here you wouldn't mind us taking a squint at our future home." "ANDREW:" "Ahem." "This is the drawing room, I suppose." "No, it's the living room, really." "Andrew uses it as a study." "How charmingly you've done it." "Oh, do you think so?" "It isn't nearly as nice as I'd like to make it but a schoolmaster's wife has other things to think about besides curtains and covers." "Boys with dirty shoes and a husband with leaky fountain pens, for instance." "MRS GILBERT:" "Well, yes, I suppose so." "Course, I haven't been a schoolmaster's wife for very long you know." "Oh, don't swank, darling, you haven't been a schoolmaster's wife at all yet." "Yes, I have, for two months." "You were a schoolmaster when I married you." "Prep school doesn't count." "Have you only been married two months?" "Two months and sixteen days." "Well, seventeen, actually." "(MRS GILBERT LAUGHING)" "Did you hear, Andrew?" "They've only been married two months." "Indeed, is that all?" "Oh, look, darling, they've got a garden." "It is yours, isn't it?" "Yes, it's only a pocket handkerchief, I'm afraid, but Andrew finds it very useful, he often works out there." "Don't you, dear?" "Yes, I find it very agreeable." "Shall I show you the rest of the flat?" "It's a bit untidy, I'm afraid." "You'll have to forgive that." "Of course." "And the kitchen's in a terrible mess." "I'm in the middle of cooking dinner." "Oh, do you cook?" "Oh, yes, I have to." "We haven't had a maid for five years." "Oh, I do think that's wonderful." "I'm scared stiff of having to do it for Peter." "I'm sure the first meal I cook for him will wreck our married life." "Yes, highly probable." "MILLIE:" "Well, these days we all have to try and do things we weren't brought up to do." "Uh, don't you want to see the rest of the flat?" "No." "Well, I leave that sort of thing to my wife." "She's the boss." "Um, I was wondering if you could tell me a few things about the lower fifth." "What would you like to know?" "Well, sir, quite frankly I'm petrified." "(CLEARING THROAT) Don't think you need to be." "May I give you some sherry?" "Thank you." "Mostly boys of about 15 to 16 and not very difficult to handle." "Headmaster says you rule them with a rod of iron." "(LAUGHING) "The Himmler of the lower fifth," he called you." "Did he?" ""The Himmler of the lower fifth"?" "I think he exaggerated." "I hope he exaggerated." "The Himmler of the lower fifth?" "Well, he only meant you that you kept the most wonderful discipline." "I must say I do admire you for that." "I couldn't manage that with 11 year olds so what I'd be like with 15 and 16 year olds, I shudder to think." "It is not so difficult." "They aren't bad boys." "Sometimes a little wild and unfeeling, perhaps, but not bad." "Himmler of the lower fifth." "Dear me." "(SIGHING) Perhaps I shouldn't have said that." "I've been tactless, I'm afraid." "Oh, no. (CLEARING THROAT)" "Sit down." "Thank you." "From the very beginning, I realised that I did not possess the knack of making myself liked," "a knack that you will find you do possess." "Do you think so?" "Oh, yes, I'm quite sure of it." "Not a quality of great importance to a schoolmaster, though, for too much of it, you may also find," "is as great a danger as a total lack of it." "Forgive me lecturing, won't you?" "No, I want to learn." "Well, I can only teach you from my own experience." "(CLEARING THROAT)" "For two or three years, I tried very hard to communicate to the boys" "some of my own joy in the great literature of the past." "Of course, I failed, as you will fail, 999 times out of 1,000." "But a single success can atone and more than atone for all the failures in the world." "And sometimes, very rarely, it is true, but sometimes I had that success." "That was in early years." "Please go on, sir." "Ahem." "In early years, too, I discovered an easy substitute for popularity." "I had, of course, acquired, we all do, many little mannerisms and tricks of speech, and I found that the boys were beginning to laugh at me." "I was very happy at that and encouraged the boys' laughter by playing up to it." "It made our relationship so very much easier." "They did not like me as a man but found me funny as a character." "And you can teach more things by laughter than by earnestness, for I never did have much of a sense of humour." "So for a time, you see, I was quite a success as a schoolmaster." "(CLEARING THROAT) Oh, this is all very personal and embarrassing for you." "Forgive me." "You need have no fears about the lower fifth." "I'm..." "I'm afraid I said something that must have hurt you very much." "It's myself you should forgive, sir." "Believe me, I'm desperately sorry." "There's no need." "You were merely telling me something that I should have known for myself." "Perhaps, I did in my heart." "I hadn't the courage to acknowledge it." "I knew, of course, that I was not only not liked, but now positively disliked." "I'd realised, too, that the boys, for many long years now had ceased to laugh at me." "I don't know why they no longer found me a joke." "Perhaps it was my illness." "No, I don't think it was that." "Something deeper than that." "Not a sickness of the body, but a sickness of the soul." "At all events, it did not take much discernment on my part to realise that I had become an utter failure as a schoolmaster." "Still, stupidly enough," "(INHALING SHARPLY) I hadn't realised that I was also feared." "The Himmler of the lower fifth." "Ha!" "I suppose that will become my epitaph." "I cannot for the life of me imagine why I should choose to unburden myself to you, a total stranger, when I've been silent to others for so long." "Perhaps it is because my very unworthy mantle is about to fall on your shoulders." "(CLEARING THROAT) If that is so I shall take a prophet's privilege and foretell you will have a very great success with the lower fifth." "Thank you, sir." "I shall do my best." "(STAMMERING)" "(ANDREW CLEARING THROAT)" "I can't offer you a cigarette, I'm afraid." "I don't smoke." "Uh, that's all right, sir." "Neither do I." "Thank you so much for showing me around." "I trust your wife has found no major snags in your new flat?" "Oh, no, none at all. (LAUGHING)" "Just imagine, Peter, Mr and Mrs Crocker-Harris first met each other in the Lake District." "Isn't that a coincidence?" "Yes." "Yes, yes, it certainly is." "Uh, on a walking tour, too?" "Oh, Andrew was on a walking tour." "No walking for me." "I can't abide it." "I was staying with my uncle, that's, um, Sir William Bartop, you may have heard of him." "He'd taken a house near Windermere." "Well, more of a mansion, really." "Rather silly for an old gentleman living on his own." "And Andrew knocked on our front door one day and asked the footman for a glass of water and my uncle invited him in to tea." "(LAUGHING) Well, our meeting wasn't quite as romantic as that." "No." "No, I knocked her flat on her face." "Not with love at first sight." "With the swing doors of our hotel bar." "So then, of course, he apologised..." "Darling, the Crocker-Harrises," "I'm sure, have better things to do than listen to your detailed but inaccurate account of our very sordid first encounter." "Why don't we just say I married you for you money and leave it at that?" "Come on, we must go." "Isn't he awful to me?" "Men have no souls, my dear." "My husband is just that same." "Bye, Mr Crocker-Harris." "Goodbye." "I think your idea about the dining room is awfully good." "Goodbye, sir." "You will, I know, respect the confidences I have just made to you." "I should hate you to think I wouldn't." "I'm sorry to have embarrassed you." "I can't think what came over me." "I haven't been very well, you know." "Bye, my dear fellow, and my best wishes." "Goodbye, sir." "And the very best of good luck to you, too, sir, in your future career." "My future career?" "Yes, thank you." "Well, goodbye, sir." "Good-looking couple." "Very." "He looks as though he's got what it takes." "I should think he'll be a success all right." "That's what I thought." "I don't think it's much of a career, though, a schoolmaster," "for a likely young chap like that." "I know you don't." "Still, I bet when he leaves this place, it won't be without a pension." "It will be roses, roses all the way and tears and cheers and Goodbye, Mr Chips." "(GRUNTING) I expect so." "What's the matter with you?" "Nothing." "You're not going to have another of your attacks, are you?" "You look dreadful." "I am perfectly all right." "Well, you know best." "Your medicine's there if you want it." "(GROANING)" "(KNOCKING ON DOOR)" "(BREATHING RAPIDLY)" "(COUGHS) Come in." "Yes, Taplow, what is it?" "Oh, nothing, sir." "What do you mean, nothing?" "I..." "I just came back to say goodbye, sir." "Oh." "I didn't have a chance while the head was here." "I rather dashed out, I'm afraid." "So I thought I'd come back and wish you luck, sir." "Thank you, Taplow." "That's good of you." "I thought this might interest you, sir." "Hmm?" "Well, what is it?" "Verse translation of the Agamemnon, sir." "The Browning version." "Oh, it's not much good." "I've been reading it in the chapel gardens." "(GRUNTING)" "(STAMMERS) It's..." "It's very interesting, Taplow." "I know the translation, of course." "It has its faults, I agree." "But, uh, I think you'll find you'll enjoy it more when you get used to the metre he employs." "Yes." "It's for you, sir." "Hmm?" "For me?" "Yes, sir." "I've written in it." "(READING ANCIENT GREEK)" "Did you buy this?" "Yes, sir." "It was only second-hand." "You shouldn't spend your pocket money this way." "That's all right, sir." "It wasn't very much." "Oh, the price isn't still inside, is it?" "No." "Just what you have written." "Nothing else." "Good." "Well, I'm sorry you've got it already." "I thought you probably..." "I haven't got it already." "I may have had it once, I can't remember." "But I haven't got it now." "Oh, that's all right, then." "What's the matter, sir?" "Have I got the accent wrong?" "(SNIFFS HARSHLY) No, the perispomenon is perfectly correct." "Taplow, would you be good enough to take that bottle of medicine you so kindly brought in and pour me out one dose in a glass which you'll find in the bathroom?" "Yes, sir." "The doses are clearly marked on the bottle." "I usually put a little water with it." "Yes, sir." "(STIFLED SOBBING)" "Thank you, Taplow." "Uh... (CHUCKLING NERVOUSLY)" "You must forgive this exhibition of weakness, Taplow." "(STAMMERING) The truth is I have been under rather a strain lately." "Of course, sir, I quite understand." "(KNOCKING ON DOOR)" "Oh." "Oh, I'm very sorry." "I thought you'd be finished by now." "Oh, oh, yes... (CLEARING THROAT) Come in, Hunter, do." "It's perfectly all right." "The lesson was over some time ago." "Taplow most kindly came back to say goodbye." "You sure I'm not intruding?" "No, no, no." "(STAMMERS) I'd like you to see this book that Taplow gave me." "Look." "It's a..." "A translation of the Agamemnon by Robert Browning." "Mmm-hmm." "You see the inscription he has put into it?" "Uh, yes, but I'm afraid it's no use to me." "I never learnt Greek, I'm afraid." "Oh, hmm." "Maybe I'll have to translate it for him, won't we, Taplow?" "(READING ANCIENT GREEK)" "That means, in a rough translation," ""God from afar looks graciously upon a gentle master."" "It's from a speech of Agamemnon's to Clytemnestra." "That's very pleasant and very apt." "Very pleasant." "But perhaps, after all (VOICE BREAKING) not so very apt." "Well, goodbye, sir, and the best of luck." "Goodbye, Taplow, and thank you very much." "Dear me." "What a fool I've made of myself in front of that boy and in front of you, Hunter." "I can't imagine what you must think of me." "Nonsense." "I'm not a very emotional person, as you know, but there was something so very touching and kindly about his action, coming as it did just after..." "It's a very delightful thing to have, don't you think?" "Delightful, yes." "The quotation, of course, he didn't find entirely by himself." "I happened to make some little joke about the line in form the other day but..." "He must have remembered it all the same to have found it so readily and, uh, perhaps he means it." "Oh, well, I'm sure he does, otherwise he wouldn't have written it." "Hello, Frank, I'm glad you're in time." "Give me a cigarette." "I've been gasping for one for an hour." "Your husband has just received a very nice present." "Oh?" "From whom?" "Uh, Taplow." "Oh." "Taplow." "He bought it with his own pocket money, Millie." "He wrote a very charming inscription inside." "Uh, "God looks kindly upon a gracious master."" "No, not "gracious". "Gentle", I think." "(SPEAKING ANCIENT GREEK)" "I think "gentle" is the better translation." "I would've rather have had this present, I think, than almost anything I can think of." "Let's see it." "(SCOFFING) The artful little beast." "(WHISPERING HOARSELY) Millie." "Artful?" "Why artful?" "Why artful, Millie?" "My dear, because when I came in this afternoon," "I found him giving an imitation of you to Frank here." "Obviously, he was scared stiff I'd tell you and you'd ditch his remove or something." "I don't blame him for trying a few bob's worth of appeasement." "I see." "Where are you going, dear?" "Dinner's almost ready." "Uh, only to my room for a moment." "I won't be long." "I wouldn't take another dose of that if I were you, dear." "You've already had one." "I'm allowed two at a time." "Well, see that it is two and no more, won't you?" "My God, how could you?" "Well, why not?" "Why should he be allowed his comforting little illusions?" "I'm not." "You're to go to his room immediately and tell him that was a lie." "Certainly not." "It wasn't a lie." "If you don't, I will." "I wouldn't if I were you." "You'll only make things worse." "He won't believe you." "We'll see about that." "All right, go ahead, see what happens." "He knows I don't lie to him and he won't like your sympathy." "He'll think you're making fun of him, like Taplow." "You and I are finished, Millie." "Frank, really." "Don't be hysterical." "I'm not." "I mean it." "Oh, yes, you mean it." "Of course you mean it." "Now, just sit down and relax and forget all about artful, little boys and their five-bob presents and talk to me." "If I live to be 100, I shall never forget the glimpse I've just had of you." "Frank, you're making a frightening mountain out of an absurd, little molehill." "And the mountain is so frightening, I'd rather forget both it and the repulsive little molehill that gave it birth." "From this moment, you and I are finished." "You can't scare me, Frank." "I know that's what you're trying to do but you can't do it." "I'm not trying to scare you, I'm telling you the simple truth." "I'm not coming to Bradford." "Very well, my dear, if that's how you feel, don't come to Bradford." "Right." "Now I think you should go to your room and look after Andrew." "I'm leaving." "What is this?" "Frank, I don't understand." "What have I done?" "You know very well what you've done!" "Go and look after Andrew." "Andrew?" "Why this sudden concern for Andrew?" "Because he's been as badly hurt as anyone can be and, as he's a sick man in a rather hysterical state, it might be a good idea to go and see how he is." "Hurt?" "Andrew, hurt?" "You can't hurt Andrew." "He's dead." "Why do you hate him so much?" "Because he keeps me from you." "That isn't true." "Because he's not a man at all." "He's a human being." "You've a fine right to be so noble about him after deceiving him for six months." "Twice in six months, at your urgent invitation." "Thank you for that." "I deserve that." "I deserve a lot worse, too." "Frank, forgive me." "I didn't mean it." "Truth is, I've never loved you." "I know that, Frank." "I know it." "I've always accepted it." "You asked me earlier if I was running away from you." "Well, I was." "Yes, I know that, too." "But I was coming to Bradford." "It was going to be the last time I was ever going to see you." "And, in Bradford, I would have told you that." "No, you wouldn't." "You wouldn't." "You've tried to tell me so often before and I've always stopped you somehow." "Somehow I'd have stopped you again." "I don't think so, not this time." "I don't care how many humiliations you heap on me," "I know you don't give two hoots for me as a person." "I've always accepted that as long as you cared for me as a woman, and you do, Frank." "You do." "You do, don't you?" "It'll be all right in Bradford." "I promise." "You'll see it'll be all right there." "I'm not coming to Bradford." "You should know me well enough by now, my dear, to realise how unlikely it is that I should ever take an overdose." "FRANK:" "Ahem." "I'm not staying for dinner, I'm afraid." "Indeed?" "I'm sorry to hear that." "Uh, you will have a glass of sherry?" "Uh, no, thank you." "You'll forgive me if I do." "Yes, of course." "Perhaps I'll change my mind." "Yes, thank you." "About Taplow..." "Oh, yes?" "It's perfectly true that he was imitating you." "I, of course, was mostly to blame in that and I'm very sorry." "That's perfectly all right." "Was it a good imitation?" "No." "I expect it was." "Boys are often very clever mimics." "He spoke of you before that, of course, he said..." "You probably won't believe this, but I thought I ought to tell you." "He said that he liked you very much." "Indeed?" "I remember very clearly his exact words." "He said, "He doesn't seem to like people to like him," ""but, in spite of it, I do." "Very much."" "So, you see, it looks after all as if the book might not be a mere question of appeasement." "The book." "Dear me, what a lot of fuss about a little book." "And not a very good little book at that." "I'd like you to believe me." "Possibly you would, my dear Hunter, but I assure you that I am not particularly concerned with Taplow's views of my character." "Nor about yours either, if it comes to that." "I should keep the book all the same." "You may find it may come to mean something to you after all." "Exactly." "It will be a perpetual reminder to myself of the story with which Taplow is, even now, regaling his friends in the house. (CLEARING THROAT)" ""I gave the Crock a book to buy him off and he blubbed." ""The Crock blubbed." ""I was there." "I tell you I saw it." "The Crock blubbed."" "My mimicry is not as good as his, I fear." "Forgive me." "Now, let us leave this idiotic subject and talk about more pleasant things." "You like this sherry?" "I got it on my last visit to London." "If Taplow ever breathes a word of this to anyone" "I'll murder him, but he won't." "And if you think I will, then you greatly underestimate my character as well as his." "Goodbye." "Leaving so soon?" "Goodbye, my dear fellow. (CLEARING THROAT)" "As this is probably the last time I shall ever see you," "I'd like to offer you some advice." "I shall be glad to listen to it." "Leave your wife." "So that you may the more easily carry on your intrigue with her?" "How long have you known that?" "Since it first began." "How did you find out?" "By information." "Whose information?" "By someone's whose word I could hardly discredit." "That's too horrible to think of." "Nothing is ever too horrible to think of, Hunter." "It is simply a question of facing facts." "She may have told you a lie." "Have you faced that fact?" "She never lies to me." "In 20 years, she has never told me a lie, only the truth." "This was a lie." "No, Hunter." "Do you wish me to quote you dates?" "She told you six months ago?" "Isn't it seven?" "Then why have you allowed me into your home?" "Why haven't you done something?" "Reported me to the governors, anything?" "Made a scene, knocked me down." "Knocked you down?" "You didn't have to invite me to dinner." "My dear Hunter, if, in the last 20 years, I had allowed such petty considerations to influence my choice of dinner guests," "I should have found it increasingly hard to remember which master to invite" "(CHUCKLING) and which to refuse." "You see, Hunter, you mustn't flatter yourself you were the first." "My information is a good deal better than yours, you understand." "It's authentic." "She's evil." "Hardly a kindly epitaph to apply to a lady whom I gather you have asked to marry." "Did she tell you that?" "She's a dutiful wife." "She tells me everything." "That was a lie." "Do you want the truth?" "Can you bear the truth?" "I can bear anything." "What I did, I did cold-bloodedly, out of weakness, ignorance and crass stupidity." "I'm bitterly, bitterly ashamed of myself." "But, in a sense, I'm glad you know." "Though I'd rather a thousand times you'd heard it from me than from your wife." "I won't ask you to forgive me." "I can only tell you with complete truth that the only emotion she has ever succeeded in arousing in me, she aroused in me for the first time 10 minutes ago, an intense, passionate disgust." "What a delightfully chivalrous statement." "She'll kill you." "(LAUGHING) My dear Hunter, if that was indeed her purpose then you should know by now she fulfilled it long ago." "Why won't you leave her?" "Because I wouldn't wish to add another grave wrong" "to one I've already done her." "And what wrong is that?" "To marry her." "You see, my dear Hunter, she is really quite as much to be pitied as I." "We are, both of us, interesting subjects for your microscope." "Both of us needing from the other something to make life supportable for us and neither of us able to give it." "Two kinds of love, hers and mine." "Worlds apart, I know now, though, when I married her, I didn't realise they were incompatible." "In those days, I hadn't realised that her kind of love, the love she requires of me and which I was unable to give her, was so important." "That its absence would drive out the other kind of love." "The kind of love that I require and which, in my folly, (LAUGHING)" "I had thought was by far the greater part of love." "I may have been, you see, Hunter, a brilliant classical scholar, but I was woefully ignorant in the facts of life." "I know better now, of course." "I know now that, in both of us, the love that we should have borne each other has turned to bitter hatred." "That's all the problem is." "Not a very unusual one, I venture to think, nor nearly as tragic as you seem to imagine." "Merely the problem of an unsatisfied wife and a henpecked husband." "You'll find it all over the world." "It is, I believe, usually a subject for farce." "And now, my dear Hunter, if you're going to leave us, please, don't let me detain you any longer." "(CLEARING THROAT)" "Don't go to Bradford." "Stay here until you take up your new job." "I think I told you I'm not interested in your advice." "Listen!" "Leave her." "It's the only way." "Would you please go!" "All right, I'd just like you to say goodbye to me properly." "Will you?" "I shan't see you again." "I know you don't want my pity." "I would like to be of some help." "(INHALING SHARPLY) If you think, Hunter, by this expression of kindness, you can get me to repeat that shameful exhibition of emotion that I showed Taplow just now, then I must tell you that you have no chance." "My hysteria over that book just now was nothing more than a sort of reflex action of the spirit, the muscular twitchings of a corpse." "It can never happen again." "Perhaps the corpse can be revived." "I don't believe in miracles." "Don't you?" "Funnily enough, as a scientist, I do." "Your faith would be touching if I was capable of being touched by it." "You are, I think!" "Ahem." "I'd like to come and visit you at this crammer's." "(LAUGHING)" "It's an absurd suggestion." "Possibly." "I'd like to all the same." "May I?" "Of course not." "Uh, your term begins on the first of September, does it not?" "I tell you, the idea is quite childish." "I could come during the second week." "You'd be bored to death, so probably would I." "Let's say Monday, September the 12th, shall we?" "You can say anything you like, only please go." "Please go, Hunter." "That's fixed then." "Monday, September the 12th." "Will you remember that?" "(EXHALING)" "I suppose I'm at least as likely to remember it as you." "That's fixed then." "Ahem." "Well..." "Goodbye until then." "Goodbye." "(CLEARING THROAT) I'm off to have a quick word with Taplow." "May I take him a message from you?" "What message?" "Has he or has he not got his remove?" "He..." "He has." "May I tell him?" "It's highly irregular." "Yes, you may." "Good." "Oh, I'd better have the address of that crammer's, haven't I?" "Sorry." "MILLIE:" "Dinner's ready." "You're staying, Frank, aren't you?" "No, I'm afraid, not." "FRANK:" "What is the address?" "The Old Deanery, Malcombe, Dorset." "Well, I'll drop you a line and you can let me know the times of the trains." "Goodbye." "Goodbye." "(DOOR CLOSING)" "(CHUCKLING) Well, that's a laugh, I must say." "What is a laugh, my dear?" "You inviting him to stay with you." "I didn't." "He suggested it." "He's coming to Bradford." "Yes, I remember you telling me so." "He's not going to you." "He's coming to Bradford." "The likeliest contingency is that he's going to neither of us." "He's coming to Bradford." "I expect so." "Oh, by the way, I'm not." "I shall be staying here until I go to Dorset." "Suit yourself." "What makes you think I'll join you there?" "I don't." "Don't expect me." "I don't think either of us has the right to expect anything further from the other." "(TELEPHONE RINGING)" "Excuse me." "Hello?" "Yes, headmaster." "The timetable?" "Well, it's perfectly simple." "The middle fourth B division will take a 10-minute break on Tuesdays and a 15-minute break on alternate Wednesdays, and exactly the reverse procedure when applied to the lower Shell C division." "I thought I'd sufficiently explained that on my chart." "Oh, I see." "Well, that's very good of you." "Yes, I think you'll find it'll work out quite satisfactorily." "Oh, by the way, headmaster," "I've changed my mind about the prize-giving ceremony." "I intend to speak after instead of before Fletcher, as is my privilege." "Yes, I quite understand but I'm seeing the matter in a different light." "I know, but I am of opinion that occasionally an anti-climax can be surprisingly effective." "Goodbye." "Come along, my dear." "We mustn't let our dinner get cold."