incipal. "Surely you will
allow that, Mr. St. James?"

"Has it? I never could find them. What do you call compensations?"

"Even to be in the continual presence of youth is a privilege. It has
the effect of keeping youth in one's own soul, for one reflects
something of their high spirits and their keen enjoyment of life."

"Little beasts!" cried my colleague.

"Come, come, Mr. St. James, you are too hard upon them."

"I hate the sight of them! If I could put them and their blessed
copybooks and lexicons and slates into one bonfire I'd do it to-night."

"This is Mr. St. James's way of talking," said the principal, smiling
nervously as he glanced at me. "You must not take him too seriously.
Now, Mr. Weld, you know where your room is, and no doubt you have your
own little arrangements to make. The sooner you make them the sooner you
will feel yourself at home."

It seemed to me that he was only too anxious to remove me at once from
the influence of this extraordinary colleague, and I was glad to go, for
the conversation had become embarrassing.

And so began an epoch which always seems to me as I look back to it to
be the most singular in all my experience. The school was in many ways
an excellent one. Dr. Phelps McCarthy was an ideal principal. His
methods were modern and rational. The management was all that could be
desired. And yet in the middle of this well-ordered machine there
intruded the incongruous and impossible Mr. St. James, throwing
everything into confusion. His duties were to teach English and
mathematics, and how he acquitted himself of them I do not know, as our
classes were held in separate rooms. I can answer for it, however, that
the boys feared him and loathed him, and I know that they had good
reason to do so, for frequently my own teaching was interrupted by his
bellowing of anger, and even by the sound of his blows. Dr. McCarthy
spent most of his time in his class, but it was, I suspect, to watch
over the master rather than the boys, and to try to moderate his
ferocious temper when it threatened to become dangerous.

It was in his bearing to the head master, however, that my colleague's
conduct was most outrageous. The first conversation which I have
recorded proved to be typical of their intercourse. He domineered over
him openly and brutally. I have heard him contradict him roughly before
the whole school. At no time would he show him any mark of respect, and
my temper often rose within