The Principal was surprised to learn that her music mistress was not musical; the sound of pianos had continued for so many years that she had assumed all was well. In ordinary circumstances she would have answered scathingly, for she was an accomplished woman, but the murmuring forest caused her to reply, “Oh, Miss Haddon, not now; let’s talk it over tomorrow morning. Now, if you will, I want you to lie down in my sitting-room while I take preparation instead, for it always rests me to be with the girls.”
So Miss Haddon lay down, and as she dozed the soul of the sea returned to her. And the Principal, her head full of forest murmurs, went to the preparation-room, and gave her cough three times before she opened the door. All the girls were at their desks except Dolores and Violet, and them she affected not to notice. After a time she went to fetch the tree of Marie Louise, which she had forgotten, and during her absence the cavalry passed again. …
In the morning Miss Haddon said, “I still wish to go, but I wish I had waited to speak to you. I have had some extraordinary news. Many years ago my father saved a man from drowning. That man has just died, and he has left me a cottage by the edge of the sea, and money to live in it. I need not work any more; so if only I had waited till today I could have been more civil to you and”—she blushed a little—“to myself.”
But the Principal shook her by both hands and kissed her. “I am glad that you did not wait,” she said. “What you said yesterday was a word of truth, a clear call through the thicket. I wish that I, too—” She stopped. “But the next step is to give the school a whole holiday.”
So the girls were summoned, and the Principal made a speech, and Miss Haddon another, giving everyone the address of the cottage, and inviting them to visit her at it. Then Rose was sent to the pastrycook’s for ices, and Enid to the greengrocer’s for fruit, and Mildred to the sweetshop for lemonade, and Jane to the livery stables for brakes, and they all drove out an immense distance into the country, and played disorganized games. Everyone hid and nobody sought; everyone batted and nobody fielded; no one knew whose side she was on, and no mistress tried to tell her; and it was even possible to play two games at once, and to be Clumps in one and Peter Pan in the other. As for the coordinative system, it was never mentioned, or mentioned in derision. For example, Ellen composed a song against it, which ran:
Silly old Boney
Sat on his Pony,
Eating his Christmas Pie,
He put in his thumb
And pulled out a plum,
And said, “What a good boy am I,”
and the smaller girls sang it without stopping for three hours.
At the end of the day the Principal summoned the whole party round Miss Haddon and herself. She was ringed with happy, tired faces. The sun was setting, the dust that the day had disturbed was sinking. “Well, girls,” she said, laughing, but just a little shy, “so you don’t seem to value my coordinative system?”
“Lauks, we don’t!” “Not much!” and so on, replied the girls.
“Well, I must make a confession,” the Principal continued. “No more do I. In fact, I hate it. But I was obliged to take it up, because that type of thing impresses the Board of Education.”
At this all the mistresses and girls laughed and cheered, and Dolores and Violet, who thought that the Board of Education was a new round game, laughed too.
Now it may be readily imagined that this discreditable affair did not escape the attention of Mephistopheles. At the earliest opportunity he sought the Judgment Seat, bearing an immense scroll inscribed “J’accuse!” Halfway up he met the angel Raphael, who asked him in his courteous manner whether he could help him in any way.
“Not this time, thank you,” Mephistopheles replied. “I really have a case now.”
“It might be better to show it to me,” suggested the archangel. “It would be a pity to fly so far for nothing, and you had such a disappointment over Job.”
“Oh, that was different.”
“And then there was Faust; the verdict there was ultimately against you, if I remember rightly.”
“Oh, that was so different again. No, I am certain this time. I can prove the futility of genius. Great men think that they are understood, and are not; men think that they understand them, and do not.”
“If you can prove that, you have indeed a case,” said Raphael. “For this universe is supposed to rest on coordination, all creatures coordinating according to their powers.”
“Listen. Charge one: Beethoven decrees that certain females shall hear a performance of his A minor quartette. They hear—some of them a band, others a shell. Charge two: Napoleon decrees that the same shall participate in the victory of Austerlitz. Result—a legacy, followed by a school treat. Charge three: Females perform Beethoven. Being deaf, and being served by dishonest clerks, he supposes they are performing him with insight. Charge four: To impress the Board of Education, females study Napoleon. He is led to suppose that they are studying him properly. I have other points, but these will suffice. The genius and the ordinary man have never coordinated once since Abel was killed by Cain.”
“And now for your case,” said Raphael, sympathetically.
“My case?” stammered Mephistopheles. “Why, this is my case.”
“Oh, innocent devil,” cried the other. “Oh, candid if infernal soul. Go back to the earth and walk up and down it again. For these people have coordinated, Mephistopheles. They
