While I was waiting to enter university, I saw in a newspaper a teaching job1at a school about ten miles from where I lived. Being very short of2and wanting to do something3I applied (申请),4as I did so, that without a degree and with no5of teaching my chances of getting the job were6.

    However, three days later, a letter arrived, calling me to Croydon for a meeting with the headmaster. It proved to be a7journey: a train to Croydon station, a ten-minute bus ride and then a walk of at8a quarter of a mile. As a result I arrived there, feeling too hot to be nervous. It was clearly the9himself that10the door. He was short and round.

    "The school," he said, "is made up of one11of twenty-four boys between seven and thirteen." I should have to teach all the subjects except art,12he taught himself. I should have to divide the class into13groups and teach them in turn at three different14 and I was15at the thought of teaching maths—a subject at which I wasn't very16at school. Worse perhaps was the idea of17to teach them on Saturday afternoon because most of my friends would be18themselves at that time.

    Before I had time to ask about my salary, he got up to his19 "Now" he said, you'd better meet my wife. She is the one who really20this school.