The Birketts of course had the usual ceremonial lunch of the Dean of Barchester and Mrs. Crawley, various Governors, a few distinguished parents, and the classical scholar and old Southbridge boy Mr. Hacker of Lazarus, an honour which made the Oxford don feel that his boots and his hands were too large and that he was even younger than he was. Very luckily there were fewer women than men and Hacker found himself next on one side to Philip Winter, now the owner of a rising school for little boys at Beliers Priory and formerly Junior Classics Master at Southbridge. This proximity, however, far from assuaging his shyness greatly intensified it, owing to a small point of etiquette. Old habit and a certain respect for old authority caused him automatically to address Philip as sir.
“No need to
