"Refer them to the lady," I said with a chuckle. He looked troubled. "I must get rid of one sex," he said. "Macdonald," I said severely, "I don't know that you can do that without the permission of the children. The rabbits and doos are their's; they bought them with their own money." "That's no great difficulty," he said lightly. "Possibly not ... not for you, Macdonald. If you use authority the bairns will hardly question it. But I don't see that you have the right to be an autocrat in this affair." "It is my duty to protect the children," he said with dignity. "Protect yourself, you mean!" I cried; "you have just confessed that your one aim is to get rid of awkward questions." "But what can I do?" he stammered. "Do! Do nothing, just as I did. Let the creatures breed as much as they darned well please; that's what they are there for. You can't very well make sex an object lesson; the logical thing to do is to give a lesson on pollination of plants and then go on to fertilisation of the bird's egg, but if you do that you'll get the sack at once. But there's quite enough of prudery in the world already without your turning a rabbit-hutch into a sultanless harem." "There are things that children shouldn't know," he said with a touch of aggression. "And there are things that grown-ups should know and don't," I said. "They ought to know that the sex conspiracy of silence is idiotic and criminal." "Anyway," he said sullenly, "I'll tell them to-morrow that there are too many in the house and that I mean to get rid of a few." "All right," I said resignedly, "you can lie to them if you want to." Then I added: "Although, mind you, Macdonald, I feel like telling the bairns the real reason for your action." He looked startled. "Don't be alarmed," I said with a smile, "I won't do it," and he looked relieved. "Why not look in at the school some afternoon?" he said amiably when we parted, "but perhaps you feel that you've shaken off the dust from your feet down there?" "I'll be delighted to come down," I said; "I didn't shake off the dust from my feet when I left ... there was quite enough dust there already." I think I'll go down to-morrow afternoon; it was decent of Macdonald to ask me after all that I have said to him. * * * A man spends his life wishing he had done certain things and wishing that he had not done certain things. I half wish that I had not accepted Macdonald's invitation; I feel lonely up here now: on the other hand I am glad that I went. I think now that Macdonald's real idea was to show me how he has improved the school. From his point of view he has improved it. He showed me exercise books that were models of neatness and care; he showed me classes swotting up subjects laboriously; the rooms were as silent as the grave.