On the following morning, at eight o’clock, my work began.
My first day had the effect of entirely revolutionizing what ideas I possessed of the lot of the private-school assistant-master.
My view, till then, had been that the assistant-master had an easy time. I had only studied him from the outside. My opinion was based on observations made as a boy at my own private school, when masters were an enviable race who went to bed when they liked, had no preparation to do, and couldn’t be caned. It seemed to me then that those three facts, especially the last, formed a pretty good basis on which to build up the Perfect Life.
I had not been at Sanstead House two days before doubts began to creep in on this point. What the boy, observing the assistant-master standing about in apparently magnificent idleness, does not realize is that the unfortunate is really putting in a spell of exceedingly hard work. He is ‘taking duty’. And ‘taking duty’ is a thing to be remembered, especially by a man who, like myself, has lived a life of fatted ease, protected from all the minor annoyances of life by a substantial income.
Sanstead House educated me. It startled me. It showed me a hundred ways in which I had allowed myself to become soft and inefficient, without being aware of it. There may be other professions which call for a fiercer display of energy, but for the man with a private income who has loitered through life at his own pace, a little school-mastering is brisk enough to be a wonderful tonic.
I needed it, and I got it.
It was almost as if Mr Abney had realized intuitively how excellent the discipline of work was for my soul, for the kindly man allowed me to do not only my own, but most of his as well. I have talked with assistant-masters since, and I have gathered from them that headmasters of private schools are divided into two classes: the workers and the runners-up-to-London. Mr Abney belonged to the latter class. Indeed, I doubt if a finer representative of the class could have been found in the length and breadth of southern England. London drew him like a magnet.
After breakfast he would take me aside. The formula was always the same.
‘Ah–Mr Burns.’
Myself (apprehensively, scenting disaster, ‘like some wild creature caught within a trap, who sees the trapper coming through the wood’). ‘Yes? Er–yes?’
‘I am afraid I shall be obliged to run up to London today. I have received an important letter from–‘ And then he would name some parent or some prospective parent. (By ‘prospective’ I mean one who was thinking of sending his son to Sanstead House. You may have twenty children, but unless you send them to his school, a schoolmaster will refuse to dignify you with the name of parent.)
Then, ‘He wishes–ah–to see me,’ or, in the case of titled parents, ‘He wishes–ah–to talk things over with me.’ The distinction is subtle, but he always made it.
And presently the cab would roll away down the long drive, and my work would begin, and with it that soul-discipline to which I have alluded.
‘Taking duty’ makes certain definite calls upon a man. He has to answer questions; break up fights; stop big boys bullying small boys; prevent small boys bullying smaller boys; check stone-throwing, going-on-the-wet-grass, worrying-the-cook, teasing-the-dog, making-too-much-noise, and, in particular, discourage all forms of -hara-kiri- such as tree-climbing, water-spout-scaling, leaning-too-far-out-of-the-window, sliding-down-the-banisters, pencil-swallowing, and ink-drinking-because-somebody-dared-me-to.
At intervals throughout the day there are further feats to perform. Carving the joint, helping the pudding, playing football, reading prayers, teaching, herding stragglers in for meals, and going round the dormitories to see that the lights are out, are a few of them.
I wanted to oblige Cynthia, if I could, but there were moments during the first day or so when I wondered how on earth I was going to snatch the necessary time to combine kidnapping with my other duties. Of all the learned professions it seemed to me that that of the kidnapper most urgently demanded certain intervals for leisured thought, in which schemes and plots might be matured.