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puis, si vous voulez m’excuser, je dois continuer la leçon. ~À tout à l’heure.
    Headmaster looks at Irwin .
    Headmaster Fuck.
    They go as the bell goes .
    Rudge It’s true, though, sir. We don’t have much time.
    Hector Now, who goes home?
    There are no offers .
    Surely I can give someone a lift?
    Who’s on pillion duty?
    Dakin?
    Dakin Not me, sir. Going into town.
    Hector Crowther?
    Crowther Off for a run, sir.
    Hector Akthar?
    Akthar Computer club, sir.
    Posner I’ll come, sir.
    Hector No. No. Never mind.
    Scripps ( resignedly ) I’ll come, sir.
    Hector Ah, Scripps.
    Hector goes .
    Scripps The things I do for Jesus. (A s he goes he gives Dakin the finger .)
    Posner I’d go.
    I’m never asked.
    Dakin You don’t fit the bill.
    Timms Me neither.
    Dakin I tell you, be grateful.
    Irwin ( distributing exercise books ) Dull.
    Dull.
    Abysmally dull.
    A triumph … the dullest of the lot.
    Dakin I got all the points.
    Irwin I didn’t say it was wrong. I said it was dull.
    Its sheer competence was staggering.
    Interest nil.
    Oddity nil.
    Singularity nowhere.
    Dakin Actually, sir, I know tradition requires it of the eccentric schoolmaster, but do you mind not throwing the books? They tend to fall apart.
    Crowther It’s the way we’ve been taught, sir.
    Lockwood Mrs Lintott discourages the dramatic, sir.
    â€˜This is history not histrionics.’
    Timms You’ve got crap handwriting, sir.
    I read Irwin as ‘I ruin’. Significant or what?
    Irwin It’s your eyesight that’s bad and we know what that’s caused by.
    Timms Sir! Is that a coded reference to the mythical dangers of self-abuse?
    Irwin Possibly. It might even be a joke.
    Timms A joke, sir. Oh. Are jokes going to be a feature, sir? We need to know as it affects our mind-set.
    Akthar You don’t object to our using the expression, ‘mind-set’, do you, sir? Mr Hector doesn’t care for it. He says if he catches any of us using it he’ll kick our arses from bollocks to sundown, sir.
    Irwin regards them for a moment or two in silence .
    Irwin At the time of the Reformation there were fourteen foreskins of Christ preserved, but it was thought that the church of St John Lateran in Rome had the authentic prepuce.
    Dakin Don’t think we’re shocked by your mention of the word ‘foreskin’, sir.
    Crowther No, sir. Some of us even have them.
    Lockwood Not Posner, though, sir. Posner’s like, you know, Jewish.
    It’s one of several things Posner doesn’t have.
    Posner mouths ‘Fuck off .’
    Lockwood That’s not racist, though, sir.
    Crowther Isn’t it?
    Lockwood It’s race-related, but it’s not racist.
    Akthar Actually, I’ve not got one either. Moslems don’t.
    Another pause while Irwin regards the class .
    Irwin Has anybody been to Rome?
    No? Well, you will be competing against boys and girls who have. And they will have been to Rome and Venice, Florence and Perugia, and they will doubtless have done courses on what they have seen there. So they will know when they come to do an essay like this on the Church on the eve of the Reformation that some silly nonsense on the foreskins of Christ will come in handy so that their essays, unlike yours, will not be dull.
    Think bored examiners.
    Think sixty, think a hundred and sixty papers even more competent than the last so that the fourteen foreskins of Christ will come as a real ray of sunshine.
    Come the fourteen foreskins of Christ and they’ll think they’ve won the pools.
    Irwin pauses as before .
    You should hate them.
    Crowther Who, sir?
    Irwin Hate them because these boys and girls against whom you are to compete have been groomed like thoroughbreds for this one particular race. Put head to head with them and, on the evidence of these essays, you have none of you got a hope.
    Crowther So why are we bothering?
    Irwin I don’t know.
    I don’t know at