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“It’s a lie.” As he said it, with a bewitching rising inflection, it was almost a caress. “It’s a lie. Teacher fools. You couldn’t to be no Krisht. You ain’t got no looks off of Krishts.”

Teacher was mildly surprised. She was as Irish as Patrick Brennan and, in her own way, she looked it. Truly her eyes were brown, but the face and the faith of her fathers were still strongly hers. Morris, meanwhile, examined his sovereign with admiring eyes. He could well understand the heart of that Krisht, for Teacher was very beautiful and of splendid array. Her jumper was red, with golden buttons, and her collar was white, and her hair was soft, with combs. And she had a light face and a little bit of nose and teeth. Her apron was from silk with red ribbons and red flowers, and she had like man’s-shoes and a watch. This vision of feminine perfection was bestowing time and smiles on him. She was actually appealing to his judgment.

“Not look like a Christian?” she was saying. “Well, then, Morris, what do I look like?”

And Morris, ever going straight to the point, replied: “You looks like a stylish Sheeny,” and waited for this intoxicating praise to bring blushes to the light face he loved. It brought the blushes, but they were even redder and hotter than he had expected. There was also a gasp on which he had not counted and a queer flash in the brown eyes.

“Morris,” said Teacher, “Morris, did you ever see a Sheeny with a nose like mine?”

Morris raised his head from the red jumper, climbed off the from-silk apron and solemnly contemplated the little bit of nose. The truth broke over him in sickening waves. The star of his life had set; his doll was stuffed with sawdust; his idol had feet of clay; his light-faced lady was a Christian. And yet she was his teacher and greatly to be loved, so he bore the knowledge, for her dear sake, as bravely as he could. He returned to the from-silk apron, wound a short arm round the white collar, and sobbed:

“Teacher, yiss ma’an, you’m got a Krisht nose. But don’t you care, no one couldn’t never to know like you ain’t a for sure Sheeny the while you got such terrible Sheeny eyes. Oh, but they couldn’t never to think you’re a Krisht. Und say, don’t you have a frightened. I wouldn’t never to tell nobody. Never. I makes a swear over it. I kiss up to God. I hopes I drops down if I tells.”

At the end of a month the high heels and the festive raiment appeared again, and the staff knew that the time for action had really come. They must bring the Krisht to terms before he should see Teacher in her present and irresistible array. He was always first at the trysting place, and there they would have speech with him. They arranged to escape from Room 18 before three o’clock. The Commander-in-Chief feigned a nose-bleed, the Prime Minister developed an inward agony, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, after some moments of indecision, boldly plucked out a tottering tooth and followed–bloody but triumphant–in their wake. They found the enemy just as they had expected, and Morris, being again elected spokesman, stepped forward and took him by his dastard hand. The adversary yielded, thinking that Teacher had been forced to greater caution. The Commander-in-Chief and the Chancellor followed close behind, they having consented, in view of the enormous issues involved, to act as scouts. Around the corner they went into a dark and narrow alley, and, when they had reached a secluded spot between the high wall of the school and the blank windows of a recently burned tenement house, Morris began:

“Teacher don’t wants to go on the party mit you the while she ain’t got no more that kind feeling over you.”