The first was in the depths of Bœotia. My sub-inspector and I had to inspect a school supported by the Earl of X., and managed by the Dowager Countess. I had been warned that her Ladyship was a little trying, and I was prepared for the worst. On the appointed day we drove a few miles from the railway station, and caught a glimpse of the Hall as we passed the lodge gates. “That’s built in the Grotto style,” said my driver, and after much meditation on this order of architecture, I decided that he meant “Gothic.” You could hardly put an Earl into a grotto. At the school door--the school also was Gothic, but I prefer the Vandals--I was invited into a sort of lobby, which should have been the girls’ cloakroom; and there was the Countess. She was stately, but gracious. The accounts were a little perplexing; what should I advise? I suggested some trivial alterations, and then noticed that on the Income side there was no record of “School-pence” paid by the children: if any had been received they must be entered. The Dowager scorned the idea: there were school-pence, but they had been received by the Mistress and had been kept by the mistress: I think she considered them _Korban_. In that case, I said, they must appear on both sides of the account; on the Expenditure side they must be added to “Mistress’s Salary.” The Dowager was wroth: she clutched me by the arm, and went nigh to shake me, as Queen Elizabeth “shook the dying countess.” “My good sir,” she said with biting sarcasm, “Lord X. is willing to pay the ordinary expenses of the school, but he cannot be expected to meet these additional charges. Is he to put down in the accounts every trifling present that he has given the mistress during the year?” I pointed out that if the children had paid the pence, and the mistress had received the pence, the Earl was safe: all that remained was to record the payment and receipt. Otherwise, I said very emphatically, the accounts would be returned by the Department, and payment of the grant would be delayed for weeks. Her grasp relaxed. “I think I see,” she said slowly: and I escaped into the school and joined my colleague in the examination of the children. The Dowager finished her accounts by the light of my suggestions, and followed. My sub. was hearing the first class read, and at the same time was keeping an eye on the second class, to which the teacher was giving Dictation. I saw her Ladyship make her way between the wall and back row of desks, glancing over the girls’ shoulders, as they wrote: I saw her pause behind one girl, and with a suggestive finger indicate that a word was wrongly spelt: I saw my ever watchful colleague shoot out a long arm, clutch the girl’s paper, crumple it up in his pocket: I heard him continue in his cheerful tones, “Very nicely read, Mary Smith; go on, Jane Brown.” The Countess withdrew: the Grotto Hall did not provide lunch: I would have given a good deal to hear her Ladyship’s account of the morning’s work.