He went round every room in the house on Sunday evenings, always
first scrupulously knocking at the door. An untidy room gave him
positive pain, and the most slovenly boys would endeavour to get
their filthy rooms into some sort of order, "just to please old
John." John was passionately fond of flowers, and one would meet
the most unlikely boys with bunches of roses in their hands. If
one inquired what they were for, they would say half-sheepishly,
"Oh, just a few roses I've bought. I thought they would please old
John; you know how keen the old chap is on flowers." Now English
schoolboys are not as a rule in the habit of presenting flowers to
their masters. For all his apparent simplicity, John was not easy
to "score off." I have known Fifth-form boys bring a particularly
difficult passage of Herodotus to John in "pupil-room," knowing
that he was not a great Greek scholar. John, after glancing at the
passage, would say, "Laddie, you splendid fellows in the Upper
Fifth know so much; I am but a humble and very ignorant old man.
This passage is beyond my attainments.
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