Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 11.pdf/194



"I was wrong," said Mr. Huss.

That almost led to a mutiny. But that is just where you score, and why Woldingstanton can't do without you. When that firework row was on we called a meeting of the school and house prefects and had up some of the louts to it—you never heard of that meeting—and we said, we all agreed you were wrong and we all agreed that right or wrong we stood by you, and wouldn't let the row go further. Perhaps you remember how that affair shut up all at once. But that is where you've got us. You do wrong, you let us see through you; there never was a schoolmaster or a father gave himself away so freely as you do, you never put up a sham front on us and consequently every one of us knows that what he knows about you is the real thing in you; the very kids in the lower fifth can get a glimpse of it and grasp that you are driving at something with all your heart and