They went up to him with difficulties in Greek prose, knowing that he comprehended not a word of that language; they asked his permission for what they knew he could not grant, and on his refusal got up cries of tyranny and despotism wherewith to raise the lower school; they whistled German war songs outside his door, and asked him the date of the Battle of Waterloo.

When he demanded their names they told him "Ainger," "Barnworth," "Wake"; and when he ordered them to stay in an hour after school, they coolly stopped work five minutes before the bell rang and walked under his very nose into the playground.
Poor monsieur, he was no disciplinarian, and he knew it.

His backbone was limp, and he never did the right thing at the right time.

He shrugged when he ought to have been chastising; and he stormed when he ought to have held his tongue.

Nobody cared for him; everybody wondered why he of all men worked at the trade of schoolmaster.