It was said that the simple inspection of garments was not always so simple as the inspector. A lady manager of a country school told me how in primitive times the dame who taught sewing in her parish had annually beguiled my remote predecessor. Every year at the end of the examination he called for the garments, and every year she handed him a shirt: every year he examined it with care, and every year he praised it in the report on the school. “_And_, Mr. Kynnersley,” she added, “it was always the same shirt, and, to begin with, it was not made in the school at all, but by a woman in the village.” There are some who “through faith have obtained a good report,” but in this case the faith was on the reporter’s side. Conceive the greatness of the fraud, and the depth of H.M.I.’s ignorance! for either the shirt must have grown yellow with age, or it must have been washed annually: and washed garments were forbidden exhibits.[42] As years went on, one grew more skilful in criticism. By painful experience one learnt to avoid certain pitfalls; for the old-fashioned dames who taught sewing were very outspoken in their comments. “Yew gentlemen don’t knaw nawthin about it: thet ain’t the right way far tew try it,” said one of these beldames to me, when I tested the strength of a darned stocking by putting my fingers through the darned places. She turned on my assistant, who was gazing with an air of profound wisdom at some masterpiece, “Thet’s the wrong side far tew luke at,” and she turned it round, in spite of his prompt assertion that he always liked to see both sides. At another school, where Mrs. Squire was deeply interested in the sewing, I had basely retreated into the class-room, while my excellent assistant of that period was commenting freely on the work. To my dismay the dear old lady came to me in a state midway between choking mirth and gnawing indignation. “Really, it is too ridiculous,” she said at last, “to see you gentlemen pretending to judge of needlework: there is Mr. Pluckham, doesn’t know the difference between feather-stitch and herring-bone.” I had never heard of feather-stitch, but I took the earliest opportunity of making its acquaintance.