“‘Nothing! then they had better go home,’ snorted Bouncer. “‘Not a bad idea,’ said the middle-aged man meditatively. “Bouncer was furious. ‘Pray, sir,’ he asked, ‘do you know who I am?’ “‘Haven’t a notion,’ said the middle-aged man. “‘My name is Bouncer, sir, John Bouncer; and I am a member of the School Management Committee.’ “‘Ah,’ said the man on the fireguard, ‘and do you know who I am?’ “‘You, sir? No, I do NOT know.’ “‘I am the inspector, what you call Her Majesty’s Inspector of Schools. Now, boys, here is teacher with the map of Europe. What is the capital of Herzegovina?’” I thought I would do without Bouncer. No one behaved like that in West Cheshire: I should be frightened. “And then,” I continued, “look at my playground. There are three railways to take me into Wales; eighty minutes to Llandudno, three and a half hours to the foot of Snowdon, two and a half hours to the foot of Cader Idris. Do you offer me Margate and Primrose Hill?” So I abode in Chester for twenty-five years. This is not a biography. I got to know the whole district topographically and individually--managers, teachers, and children. A new generation of managers sprang up; many of the teachers had been children under my inspection; the children were the sons and daughters of my earliest victims. The buildings had grown up with the teachers and children; there were few, indeed, that had not been enlarged, modernised, or practically reconstructed, and many of them brought pleasant recollections of hard fought battles waged with managers for the sake of the children, or with the powers of darkness for the sake of both managers and children. But I began to think that I had been there too long. We knew one another too well, and there was an increasing danger of my standard being regarded as the standard standard. So I mused, and waited. CHAPTER XIV MY LORDS “Nay, do not think I flatter: For what advancement may I hope from thee?” _Hamlet._ Some years ago the present chronicler and others were staying at a small hotel in a remote corner of Silesia. After breakfast the waiter appeared and addressed the linguist of the party. What did the Herrschaft propose? he should recommend the ascent of the Flaschenberg. At what hour would the Herrschaft dine? “What does he call us?” I asked the linguist. “Herrschaft,” he said: “Their Lordships; _you_ ought to know.”