A drawing teacher appeared in a seventh grade room twice a week. It came
her turn to suffer from a school prank—pepper scattered on the floor
produced an uncontrollable epidemic of sneezing.
There was not the least clue to the offender, but the teacher was too
proud to thrust the matter into other hands, so she made this
announcement:
“You can see very well that this sort of thing is intolerable. We must
see that no one reports this. I want to ask the seventh grade to hold a
special class meeting and dispose of the trouble the best they know
how.”
The superintendent was notified of the plan, consented to it, and in
fact waited with interest to see who was made chairman of the meeting.
To his dismay the neatest scamp of the forty pupils was made chairman.
After the superintendent retired, the chairman with great dignity shut
and locked the door, and put the key in his pocket just in time to
prevent the departure of two timid souls.
For an hour and a half the conference continued with almost unflagging
interest. At the end the door opened and the valiant chairman met the
superintendent just emerging from a nearby position and reported:
“That’s all been fixed up. It ain’t goin’ to happen again.”