The position of Burleigh School in the English educational system would be very difficult to explain to a foreigner (who has, God knows, enough to contend with in comprehending the other parts of the system). Nor would it be possible to refer him to any works of literature (before the present one) from which he could gain enlightenment. The prep schools have had their Orwell, the public schools their Connolly and Benedictus, the convent schools their Antonia White, the private boarding schools their Waugh and Nicolas Blake. No one has thought it worth their while to eulogize or anathematize schools like Burleigh. Indeed, schools like Burleigh do not seem the sort of places from which writers emerge. And yet, any medium-sized town in the southern half of England has its Burleigh School: a private day school to which, for a not too exorbitant fee, parents can send their children and boast that they are privately educated. Not well educated, but privately. Burleigh itself had been founded--no, started--between the wars, had survived the Depression (as the South of England middle classes in general had so signally managed to coast blithely through the Depression) and had offered over the years an alternative to the Grammar, Secondary Modern and Technical Schools of the town of Cullbridge. Which meant, in effect, that though some parents chose to send their children there rather than to the Grammar School, many more sent them there because they failed their eleven-plus, that Beecher's Brook of English childhood. With the coming of comprehensive education three years before, even the faint whiff of privilege attached to the Grammar School had evaporated, a fact on which Burleigh had been able to capitalize, in a mild way. Foreigners are always apt to find charming the examples they come across of quaint anachronisms, of dated anomalies, in English life. One such charming and dated anomaly is that a school like Burleigh can be bought. A man--any man--can buy such a place, set himself up as headmaster, and run it as he likes. Indeed, that is precisely what Edward Crumwallis had done. He had bought it from its previous aging owner/headmaster in 1969, and had been there ever since. This must not be taken to imply that Edward Crumwallis was unfit for his position. He was in fact a BA (3rd class, Geography), from the University of Hull (graduated 1948). Still, scholarship was not exactly his thing. He might take the odd class in Geography in a pinch, but he had never given the subject any particular prominence in the school, and most boys gave it up after two years. Nor was Crumwallis anxious to take over periods in other subjects when there was need--as in cases of sickness or (frequently) death. Since his graduation he had not cultivated Learning. He had cultivated Manner. He had bought Burleigh (which he invariably called The Burleigh School, in capitals) precisely so that his manner might be given free reign and ample pasturage. A very good manner it was too, with parents-- decidedly impressive, ft certainly impressed those of limited intelligence, among whom may be numbered-Crumwallis himself. He really believed in it: he not only thought that others should remain silent during his threadbare pontifications, but he actually believed they would benefit from them. Such a conspicuous lack of self-knowledge had its dangers. Not that the Manner--which he intended should be so admired later in the week On Parents' Evening--was particularly in evidence on the Monday, as he sat at his study desk and went over the plans for that event with his wife. The side of Edward Crumwallis that was most evident during such t?te-?-?tes was the petty-minded, niggling side that his psychological profile seldom turned in the parents' direction. 'The question is, shall we splurge on the coffee and scrimp on the tea, or vice versa,' he said. Orwell, Connolly, Benedictus, Antonio W