Now let me pause. Should I have “told tales out of school” about that letter? I doubt. And yet I decide in favour of the reader. As far as I am concerned, I think meanly of the man who will hide a good story because it is to his own disparagement; and I think that the Marquis of Carabas is untouched in his honour, I would even say in his judgment. Remember that I had all necessary qualifications for the post, including practical experience, in addition to good testimonials. And then you admit that it was an admirable appointment? That being so, I will let the story stand. Some twenty-five years afterwards it happened that I was on a cycling tour, and chance brought me to a noble park which, by the courtesy of the owner, was open to cyclists. At the entrance there was the usual instruction to cyclists to ring a bell on approaching people or carriages; but bell-ringing had already fallen into disuse as an indispensable ceremony, though retained for emergencies. Therefore, when I saw a wagonette drawn up in the middle of the park road, I did not ring; it was the first year of “free-wheelers,” and I merely slackened pace, and planned circumvention of the carriage. In the wagonette sat an elderly gentleman, who looked reproachfully at me and said, “Yes, but you didn’t ring your bell.” The experienced Civil Servant acquires a habit of not “answering back”; he keeps silence even from good words, and I did not reply that I never rang a bell unless I wanted something; that I did not wish him to move; nor had I any intention of running into his carriage, which would have buckled my front wheel. Merely I looked at him with some surprise, and rode on pondering on the phenomenon. Suddenly it flashed across my mind that this was the monarch of all he surveyed--my Lord of Carabas, formerly Lord President of the Council, patron of my youth, whom I had failed to see when I called in Whitehall; through whose discernment in the selection of Inspectors I had been battening on the Consolidated Fund for a quarter of a century. Ring a bell! I would have rung a triple bob major. Should I go back, and explain, ringing carillons as I drew near? Long before I could decide, I had left the park far behind. It was a Hard Case, such as the ingenious editor of _Vanity Fair_ propounds for solution every week. What should A. do? This is quite irrelevant to the preparations for my assumption of office. I had to pass a medical examination, and then I was gazetted. In that day, and up to 1903, Inspectors of Schools were actually appointed by the Sovereign in Council, and for this reason they were really entitled to the prefix H.M., which is assumed by many other inspectors “of lesser breed.”[11]