“Come in,” said the girl with a burst of friendliness. “Never mind about wipin’ your boots; it’s getting to the end of the week. You could see _her_ if you didn’t mind waiting till she’s finished giving a lesson.” “Shall I wait here in the passage?” “Don’t disturb him,” whispered the girl, “if I let you rest your weary bones in the back room.” She opened the door of the back room quietly. “_She’s_ as right as rain,” whispered the girl confidently, “but _he_—” The girl gave an expressive wave of the hand, signifying that the Professor was not indispensable to the world’s happiness. Erb went in. “I’d stay and chat to you,” she said through the doorway, “only there’s my ironin’. I’ve got the ’ole ’ouse to look after, mind you, besides answering the front door.” “Takes a bit of doing, no doubt.” “You never said a truer word,” whispered the short servant. “There’s pictures in that magazine you can look at. If you want me, ’oller ‘Lizer!’ over the banisters.” Professor Danks, asleep on the sofa, had the _Era_ over his face for better detachment from a wakeful world: the paper was slipping gradually, and Erb, watching him over the top of the book, knew that the eclipse would be over and the features fully visible in a few minutes. Meanwhile, he noticed that the Professor was a large, heavy man, with snowy hair at one end, and slippers which had walked along muddy pavements at the other; not a man, apparently, of active habits. “I fear I shall never make anything of you,” her decided voice came from the front room. “You don’t pay attention. You don’t seem to remember what I tell you.” “Mustn’t be too harsh with my husband, miss,” said a voice with the South London whine. “We all have to make a beginning, don’t forget that.” “Now, sir. Once more, please, we’ll go through this piece of poetry. And when you say the first lines, ‘Give others the flags of foreign states,’ show some animation; don’t say the words casually, as though you were talking of the weather.” “You understand, miss,” interposed the pupil’s wife, “that he’s made up the words out of his own head.” “I am sure of that,” with a touch of sarcasm. “But, whilst he’s very clever in putting poetry together, he is not so good—I’m speaking, Albert dear, for your own benefit—he is not so good in reciting of them. And we go out into Society a great deal (there’s two parties on at New Cross only next month that we’re asked to), and what I thought was that it would be so nice any time when an evening began to go a bit slow for me to say casually, ye know, ‘Albert, what about that piece you made up yourself?’ Then for him to get up and recite it in a gentlemanly way.” “Come now,” said the instructress, “‘Give others the flags of foreign states, I care not for them a jot.’”