Præpostor

The master mounted into the high desk by the door, and one of the præpostors of the week stood by him on the steps, the other three marching up and down the middle of the school with their canes, calling out “Silence, silence!”

He rose, always in spite of himself, into the Doctor’s form, and for the last two years or so of his time was among the præpostors, though he never rose into the upper half of them.

A History paper was lately set, at a girls’ school, on a certain period of English history—say the Reformation. One question was: “Mention the person in your period who interests you most, and give your reasons.” During the examination some female præpostor or other subaltern was sitting with the girls, some of whom asked, “Does ‘your period’ mean our period?” “Yes,” said the invigilatrix, if that is the word for the fair looker-on.