FullReads

A week passed thus, and then the good-hearted and experienced Miss Blake hurried ponderously across the hall to put Teacher on her guard.

“I’ve just had a note from one of the grammar teachers,” she panted. “‘Gum Shoe Tim’ is up in Miss Greene’s room. He’ll take this floor next. Now, see here, child, don’t look so frightened. The Principle is with Tim. Of course you’re nervous, but try not to show it. And you’ll be all right, his lay is discipline and reading. Well, good luck to you!”

Miss Bailey took heart of grace. The children read surprisingly well, were absolutely good, and the enemy under convoy of the friendly Principal would be much less terrifying than the enemy at large and alone. It was, therefore, with a manner almost serene that she turned to greet the kindly concerned Principal and the dreaded “Gum Shoe Tim.” The latter she found less ominous of aspect than she had been led to fear, and the Principal’s charming little speech of introduction made her flush with quick pleasure. And the anxious eyes of Sadie Gonorowsky, noting the flush, grew calm as Sadie whispered to Eva, her close cousin:

“Say, Teacher has a glad. She’s red on the face. It could to be her papa.”

“No. It’s comp’ny,” answered Eva sagely. “It ain’t her papa. It’s comp’ny the whiles Teacher takes him by the hand.”

The children were not in the least disconcerted by the presence of the large man. They always enjoyed visitors and they liked the heavy gold chain which festooned the wide white waistcoat of this guest; and, asthey watched him, the Associate Superintendent began to superintend.

He looked at the children all in their clean and smiling rows: he looked at the flowers and the gold fish; at the pictures and the plaster casts: he looked at the work of the last term and he looked at Teacher. As he looked he swayed gently on his rubber heels and decided that he was going to enjoy the coming quarter of an hour. Teacher pleased him from the first. She was neither old nor ill-favoured, and she was most evidently nervous. The combination appealed both to his love of power and his peculiar sense of humour. Settling deliberately in the chair of state, he began:

“Can the children sing, Miss Bailey?”

They could sing very prettily and they did.

“Very nice, indeed,” said the voice of visiting authority. “Very nice. Their music is exceptionally good. And are they drilled? Children, will you march for me?”

Again they could and did. Patrick marshaled his line in time and triumph up and down the aisles to the evident interest and approval of the “comp’ny,” and then Teacher led the class through some very energetic Swedish movements. While arms and bodies were bending and straightening at Teacher’s command and example, the door opened and a breathless boy rushed in. He bore an unfolded note and, as Teacher had no hand to spare, the boy placed the paper on the desk under the softening eyes of the Honourable Timothy, who glanced down idly and then pounced upon the note and read its every word.

“For you, Miss Bailey,” he said in the voice before which even the school janitor had been known to quail. “Your friend was thoughtful, though a little late.” And poor palpitating Miss Bailey read.

“Watch out! ‘Gum Shoe Tim’ is in the building. The Principal caught him on the back stairs and they’re going round together. He’s as cross as a bear. Greene in dead faint in dressing-room. Says he’s going to fire her. Watch out for him, and send the news on. His lay is reading and discipline.”

Miss Bailey grew cold with sick and unreasoning fear. As she gazed wide-eyed at the living confirmation of the statement that “Gum Shoe Tim” was “as cross as a bear,” the gentle-hearted Principal took the paper from her nerveless grasp.

“It’s all right,” he assured her. “Mr. O’Shea understands that you had no part in this. It’s all right. You are not responsible.”