“Dunny, you’ve done a superb job during the whole of the war, and long beyond. But it was fun, wasn’t it?”

“No, not fun. Damned hard slogging. Endless trouble getting and keeping staff. Managing with our old men and some young ones who weren’t fit for service—or teaching, if it comes to that. Problems with ‘war-guest’ boys who were homesick, or hated Canada, or thought they could slack because they weren’t in England. Problems with the inevitable hysteria of the school when the news was bad, and the worse hysteria when it was good. The fag of keeping up nearly all my own teaching and doing the administration as well. Not fun, Boy.”

“None of us had an easy war, Dunny. And I must say you look well on it. The question is, what are we to do now?”

“You’re the Chairman of the Board. You tell me.”

“You don’t want to go on being Head, do you?”

“That depends on the conditions. It might be much pleasanter now. I’ve been able to get a pretty good staff during the last eighteen months, and I suppose money will be more plentiful now that the Board can think about it again.”

“But you’ve just said you hated being Head.”

“In wartime—who wouldn’t? But, as I say, things are improving. I might get to like it very much.”

“Look, old man, let’s not make a long business of this. The Board appreciates everything you’ve done. They want to give you a testimonial dinner. They want to tell you in front of the whole school how greatly indebted they are to you. But they want a younger Headmaster.”

“How young? You know my age. I’m not quite fifty, like yourself. How young does a Headmaster have to be nowadays?”

“It isn’t entirely that. You’re making this awfully tough for me. You’re unmarried. A Headmaster needs a wife.”

“When I needed a wife, I found that you needed her even more.”

“That’s hitting below the belt. Anyhow, Leo wouldn’t have—never mind. You have no wife.”

“Perhaps I could find one in a hurry. Miss Gostling, at our sister school, Bishop Cairncross’s, has been giving me the glad eye in an academic way for two or three years.”

“Be serious. It’s not just the wife. Dunny, we have to face it. You’re queer.”

“The Sin of Sodom, you mean? If you knew boys as I do, you would not suggest anything so grotesque. If Oscar Wilde had pleaded insanity, he would have walked out of court a free man.”

“No, no, no! I don’t mean kid-simple, I mean queer—strange, funny, not like other people.”

“Ah, that’s very interesting. How am I queer? Do you remember poor old Iremonger who had a silver plate in his head and used to climb the waterpipes in his room and address his class from the ceiling? Now he was queer. Or that unfortunate alcoholic Bateson who used to throw a wet boxing glove at inattentive boys and then retrieve it on a string? I always thought they added something to the school—gave boys a knowledge of the great world that the state schools dare not imitate. Surely you do not think I am queer in any comparable way?”