Lucy’s thoughts were abruptly brought back to Eastern Africa and discipline in her school class; for a too venturesome rat, darting up a rafter, had lost his footing and fallen plop amongst the girls—the "Big-geru," and they, upsetting forms and throwing away slates, had flung themselves in a struggling heap on the spot where the rat had landed. From out of the mêlée one triumphant young woman rose up, with her smock torn from top to bottom, but holding up a damaged, dying rat by its broken tail. A loud clamour of voices disputing the fairness of the capture and the answering shrieks of the capturer, secure in the possession of her prize (which she would shortly eat broiled over the ashes as a relish to her sorghum porridge), roused Lucy to a show of anger which stilled the tumult and turned the girls’ attention to their teacher. She, standing up and trying to stammer out in Swahili words of adequate reproof, realized still more vividly the dreariness of her present lot, and bursting into an agony of tears, buried her head in her arms over the desk. The little children gazed at her grief, awe-struck. Could rich, god-like white people have any sorrow, when they might wear cloth to any extent and had white salt in bottles and delicious foods in tins? Propelled by Josiah’s wife they stole away wondering; and the "Big-geru" left the school gracelessly, with loud laughs and free comments in Kagulu on the white woman’s show of emotion. The schoolroom clock ticked on, the rats, emboldened, rushed about the thatch and dropped without mishap on the floor, whence they scuttled out on to the verandah, then up the posts and so into the roof again. The flame-white sunlight grew fiercer in the square, the shadows of the trees shorter and more purple. At last a loud bell clanged, and presently Ann Jamblin looked in and said with a shade of insolence as she passed on: "The luncheon bell, Lucy." Lucy affected not to hear her, but hurriedly dabbed her tear-stained face with a handkerchief, shook her white dress tidy, smoothed her hair with a hand-touch here and there, and took down a book from a shelf as if to study.... Her husband stood at the doorway. "Luncheon’s ready, dear.... Have the girls been unruly this morning?" "Thank you, I’m not hungry. Don’t wait lunch for me. I dare say I shan’t want anything till tea-time.... The girls? Oh! Not worse than usual. I have no influence with them.... It’s my fault, of course. I was never cut out for this work. Please, _please_ don’t wait.... I suppose it isn’t part of one’s Christian duty to eat when you aren’t hungry?..." John Baines looked downcast ... and went out to the lunch of roast kid or roast guinea-fowl, sweet potatoes, boiled plantains, and banana fritters in syrup of sugar-cane, with less appetite than usual.