"I think you are wrong. Personally, I am a very lazy man; I have my
library all over the floor as a rule. Yet, though I am lazy physically I
am not lazy mentally. I hold that the really lazy teacher is your "ring
the bell at nine sharp" man; he hustles so much that he hasn't time to
think. If you work hard all day you never have time to think."
Simpson laughed.
"Man, I'd like to see your school!"
"Why not? Come up tomorrow morning," I said.
"First rate!" he cried, "I'll be there at nine."
"Better not," I said with a smile, "or you'll have to wait for ten
minutes."
* * *
He arrived as I blew the "Fall in" on my bugle.
"You don't line them up and march them in?" he said.
"I used to, but I've given it up," I confessed. "To tell the truth I'm
not enamoured of straight lines."
We entered my classroom. Simpson stood looking sternly at my chattering
family while I marked the registers.
"I couldn't tolerate this row," he said.
"It isn't so noisy as your golf club on a Saturday night, is it?" He
smiled slightly.
Jim Burnett came out to my desk and lifted _The Glasgow Herald_, then
he went out to the playground humming _On the Mississippi_.
"What's the idea?" asked Simpson.
"He's the only boy who is keen on the war news," I explained.
Then Margaret Steel came out.
"Please, sir, I took _The Four Feathers_ home and my mother began to
read them; she thinks she'll finish them by Sunday. Is anybody reading
_The Invisible Man_?"