Page:Love and Mr. Lewisham – Wells (1899).djvu/246

234 he asked with his eye on the exquisite grey trousering.

"In our sort of school—decidedly. It's a question of tone, you know."

"I see," said Lewisham, beginning to realise new limitations. His immediate impulse was to escape the eye of the nicely dressed assistant master. "You'll write, I suppose, if you have anything," he said, and the precise young man responded with alacrity to his doorward motion.

"Often get that kind of thing?" asked the nicely dressed young man when Lewisham had departed.

"Rather. Not quite so bad as that, you know. That waterproof collar—did you notice it? Ugh! And—'I see.' And the scowl and the clumsiness of it. Of course he hasn't any decent clothes—he'd go to a new shop with one tin box! But that sort of thing—and board school teachers—they're getting everywhere! Only the other day—Rowton was here."

"Not Rowton of Pinner?"

"Yes, Rowton of Pinner. And he asked right out for a board schoolmaster. He said, 'I want someone who can teach arithmetic.

He laughed. The nicely dressed young man meditated over the handle of his cane. "A bounder of that kind can't have a particularly nice time," he said, "anyhow. If he does get into a decent