Thus when our form-master, a Mr. Muglington, asked me if I knew the capital of Belgium, I replied that while I had not as yet enjoyed the opportunity of paying the town a personal visit, I had been credibly informed that it was known as Brussels, so indissolubly associated with the well-known brassica.[2] Though he was a repellent-looking man with a ginger moustache, I had nevertheless accompanied the words with a friendly smile. But he merely stared at me in what I was compelled to recognise as a singularly crude and offensive fashion. Footnote 2: The botanical family that includes the sprout. I am now convinced that Mr. Muglington did not know this. “Let me see,” he said, “I think your name is Carp.” “Augustus Carp,” I replied, “of Angela Gardens.” “Then kindly remember,” he said, “to confine yourself in future to the information asked for and nothing else.” It was of course the speech of a peculiarly narrow-minded and vindictive man, fortuitously thrust into a position of authority that had evidently nourished his worst propensities. But I had not as yet realized how deplorably typical he was of the class to which he belonged, and it was a considerable time before I could restrain the sobs that his infamous words had provoked. Nor did he fail to take a further and dastardly advantage of my emotion. “Perhaps,” he observed, with a malignant sneer, “when you’ve quite finished chewing the cud, you’d be so kind as to oblige us by enumerating the principal exports of Finland.” Afterwards, I am glad to say, thanks to the instant and imperative demand of my father, he was obliged to apologise to me both in my father’s presence and in that of the head master, Mr. Septimus Lorton. But it was not an apology, as I discerned at once, founded on any real and heart-felt contrition, and although I assured him that, so far as I was concerned, he might consider the incident closed, it was perfectly apparent to me that I could never in the future admit him to the privileges of friendship. Nor was I destined to receive a more satisfying response from the next advance that it seemed my duty to make. Excused on moral grounds from the study of French by a special stipulation of my father, I was permitted instead to take extra lessons in German from a Mr. Beerthorpe. A stoutly-built man with extremely short sight, corrected by lenses of exceptional thickness, I was at first attracted to this person by an expression of what I soon discovered was a spurious amiability. I was also distressed to find him almost universally alluded to by the first syllable of his name only, to which the letter y, not originally present in it, had been appended by way of suffix.