Do you happen to know of any job which would give me enough
to live on? Salary is less an object with me than prospects. I would
gladly accept a mastership in some high school."
"You are quite right in seeking independence," replied Nalini, "and
I shall be glad to help you. But lower-grade teachers are miserably
paid, and their prospects are no better. It is only graduates who
can aspire to a head-mastership. Are you one?"
"No, sir, but I passed the F.A. examination in 1897."
"Ah, then, you are a Diamond Jubilee man--that's a good omen,"
rejoined Nalini, with a shade of sarcasm in his voice. "What were
your English text-books?"
"I read Milton's Absalom and Achitophel, Dryden's Holy Grail, and many
other poems, but I'm not sure of their titles after all these years."
Nalini suspected that his friend's English lore was somewhat rusty. In
order to test him further, he asked, "Can you tell me who wrote
'Life is real, life is earnest,'--that line applies to you!"
Pulin fidgeted about before answering. "It must have been Tennyson--or
was it Wordsworth? I never could keep poetry in my head."
Nalini thought that an F.A. might have remembered Longfellow's Psalm
of Life, but he refrained from airing superior knowledge.
"Do you know any mathematics?" he inquired.
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