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masters; they could keep order better than a foreigner, and,
since they knew the grammar as well as any Frenchman,
it seemed unimportant that none of them could have got
a cup of coffee in the restaurant at Boulogne unless the
waiter had known a little English. Geography was taught
chiefly by making boys draw maps, and this was a favou-
rite occupation, especially when the country dealt with
was mountainous: it was possible to waste a great deal of
time in drawing the Andes or the Apennines. The masters,
graduates of Oxford or Cambridge, were ordained and un-
married; if by chance they wished to marry they could only
do so by accepting one of the smaller livings at the disposal
of the Chapter; but for many years none of them had cared
to leave the refined society of Tercanbury, which owing to
the cavalry depot had a martial as well as an ecclesiastical
tone, for the monotony of life in a country rectory; and they
were now all men of middle age.
The headmaster, on the other hand, was obliged to be
married and he conducted the school till age began to tell
upon him. When he retired he was rewarded with a much
better living than any of the under-masters could hope for,
and an honorary Canonry.
But a year before Philip entered the school a great change
had come over it. It had been obvious for some time that
Dr. Fleming, who had been headmaster for the quarter of
a century, was become too deaf to continue his work to the
greater glory of God; and when one of the livings on the
outskirts of the city fell vacant, with a stipend of six hun-
dred a year, the Chapter offered it to him in such a manner
Of Human Bondage