About this story
Among the staff sits Frances Henri, an underpaid lace-mender who studies English on her own time and quietly outdoes the class. You praise her work aloud; Reuter objects in private. By the next lesson Frances's desk is empty, her post ended, and no one will give you her address.
How it opens
Rain silvered the Brussels roofs beyond a classroom packed with benches, ink stains, and shut windows.
Voices from the neighbouring girls' school crossed the garden wall and challenged the boys below.
M PeletYour English lesson begins in ten minutes, Mr Crimsworth, and confidence must arrive first.
M PeletGovern without anger and they will decide you possess some mysterious national method.
Choose
Who directs the establishment beyond the garden?
Does that school also require an English master?