Revolting Colours Update

I have remembered that there IS a nastier colour than ecclesiastical purple, and it is the abhorrent shade of salmon-type pink worn by the Priests and Deacons at the Sacred Heart on Laetare Sunday (4th in Lent), which has to be seen to be believed. The very Priests and Deacons themselves joke about it.

Laetare Pink. UGH.

Nobody alert the Headmistress to its existence, for Heaven's sake and the good of all the pupils.

Cross Letters to the Headmistress

Annoying news from the academic coalface has caused me to write another letter of complaint to the school.

 

 

Dear Headmistress,

 

My son, Redacted Name of Year 10, yesterday brought home news calculated to strike fear into the heart of any mother - that new uniform is being mooted. You have clearly not factored in the MRS NAME element here. An oversight must have occurred, causing you not to have read correspondence from me to your predecessor. I enclose a few samples of those letters, so that you may see what manner of parent you are up against. It was unkind of the school governors not to have alerted you to the dangers, and I will overlook your indiscretion on this occasion. But I do not expect - and will not countenance - any further outbreaks.
 

Redacted tells me that you intend to change the name of the school, the school motto and the uniform.
 

Changing the name of the school is unnecessary. It is the only school for 30 miles in any direction so what difference would it make? It's just 'School'. You are destroying any sense of continuity by doing this. Why, in my school days nothing changed and people wore uniforms which had been worn by their grandmothers, and still bore their ancestral nametapes - and the schoolmistresses, having taught the grandmothers, knew the relationship. Many a new bug was greeted with "Ah. Araminta Fortescue (or what ever name it was). I taught your grandmother. She was no better than she ought to have been. I shall be keeping a close eye on you, girl." Such abiding permanence made us feel tremendously secure. Actually I hated every minute of it, but it was very bracing.
 

As for the uniforms, I gather you have chosen PURPLE, and quasi-ecclesiastical purple at that. Really? Is there any nastier colour than ecclesiastical purple? What blows can fate have dealt you, that you should wish to take revenge by forcing self-conscious teenagers to go about the town wearing purple blazers with, if my information is correct, neon lapels? Ties, I grant you, are a reasonable requirement, but MUST they be teamed with pale grey trousers? And why are the shirts not to be white? It seems you feel the need to make your mark, but trust me, Headmistress, this is a method of doing so which has been tried innumerable times before by incoming Heads, and has always failed. 
 

So:

a) Keep the old name and motto of the school as this will i) maintain tradition, and ii) prevent considerable sums being spent on new stationery etc. Use the money saved, to pay for getting the computers mended and to buy some textbooks.

b) Change the uniform if you insist, but let it at least be to black trousers, black blazers, and white shirts; and if you want a colour, retain the present navy blue by allowing the ties to have stripes of it. But, speaking as one whose wallet still shows the scars of having had to buy new P.E. kit when the last change took place, I could WEEP.

c) You can 'make your mark' by applying yourself diligently to improving standards to such a degree that my son secures a place at Oxford to read Greats.

 

My Accounts Dept will provide you with a modest invoice for this advice.

 

Yours sincerely,

Mrs G-AHLK Name

 

 

 

Dear Headmistress's Predecessor,
It appears that there has been an appalling breach of security at the school. My son R Name of Year 9 says that yesterday propagandists from the energy firm EDF gained access to pupils and were able to spend almost an hour addressing them with regard to the proposed development of the nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point. I presume that at no time were teachers aware of what was going on, as nothing was done to prevent it from continuing.
I suggest that you speak sharply to your on-site guards and tell them their vigilance levels are falling far short of what the parents expect. We should be able to send our children to school knowing that they will be kept safe by those to whom we entrust them – not offered up willy-nilly to any capitalist lackeys who wish to deceive them with their serpents’ tongues.
Fortunately my boy is intelligent enough to see clearly what their game was, and the outcome for us was no more than a most amusing conversation round last night’s dinner table, as he gave us a synopsis of what they had said and the cheap psychological tricks they had used.
But my concern is for other families whose children are less wise to the ways of these people.
I must ask you now to invite other speakers to the school to give different views of the energy debate, and then have your teachers lead sessions guiding pupils through the confusing and conflicting arguments, answering their questions and encouraging them to think about these matters for themselves. In this way, what is at present an embarrassing lapse could be turned to good use by furnishing pupils with a useful insight into the wickedness of the world in which they live.
I look forward to receiving your comments.
A Concerned Parent
 

 

Dear Headmistress's Predecessor,

I am writing to let you know of some issues my son R Name (Year 8) has been experiencing at school with regard to his sleeping patterns. He has been finding it increasingly difficult to sleep at school and on some occasions recently has come home having had no sleep at all during the day.

The reasons he cites are noisy and demanding teachers, inconsiderate classmates and lack of comfortable places to sleep. Some classrooms have no bed provided and in the gymnasium pupils' rest is frequently disturbed by athletes leaping about. The science laboratories are plagued by constant explosions which wake one up and in the art room one is perpetually being asked to create collages and do other sleep-incompatible activities.

It has been proved that children whose daytime rest is disrupted find themselves incapable of participating profitably within the home environment. My son has been nodding off during our family TV viewing sessions and last week he was unable to stay awake while my husband read him a single sentence of Proust.

The situation is becoming untenable. Can you assure me that the provision of sufficient chill-out zones within the school will be your number one priority?

Mrs Name

 

 

 

 

2 Ridiculous Concepts

Here are 2 daft ideas that people hold and WILL NOT be persuaded against, much to my bafflement and exasperation.

1. That it is statistically wise to buy Lottery tickets

When my daughter became 18 she asked me how to enter the Lottery. Poor child! My advice was not to on any account. I had forbidden her father to enter the stupid thing when it first came out.

The odds may be illustrated as follows: Consider a lush meadow verdant with grass. Now select one blade of the grass - out of all the myriad blades of grass available in the meadow. Leave it there (don't pick it), and when Camelot's officials come along at the end of the week, see if they select your blade, out of all the blades. They won't, will they? No. They will not. Add to this scenario the appalling idea of paying a £1 for your participation in the charade, and the fact that should they, in a freak occurrence, choose your blade of grass, you will either have mislaid the ticket proving it to be your blade of grass, or you will forget to check the meadow at all - and you begin to appreciate the idiocy of the proposition. Also bear in mind that a tiny proportion of the money goes to a charity (and not one of your choice), while the rest bankrolls the nest-feathering activities of the Camelot executives.

Alternative Lottery Payment Facility

Better, I suggested, that she go out into the alleyway, find a drainhole, and insert money into the slot provided, thus:







This course of action is more beneficial than buying a lottery ticket since

i) the money could at least assist some wretched tramp who might find it later down at the sewage works, and

ii) one is unlikely to repeat the experience even once, let alone week by week.

The thrust of my argument is this: why, why, WHY pay good money to increase your chances of winning by so negligible a degree? Keep your £1! Buy some beer with it! You are no less likely* to win the big prize, AND you get some beer. 

*well, OK, you are 0.000007% less likely, but really, what's the difference?

2. That a tree falling over makes no noise if there is no-one there to hear it.

This makes me so cross that I can hardly address the question. Of COURSE it makes a dratted noise. Sound waves are generated when trees fall over. Sound = noise. All it means is that no-one hears it. It is simply a matter of definition. MY definition of sound is that it is a sequence of waves of pressure that propagates through compressible media such as air or water. People who are trying to annoy me have a different definition, which involves their egocentric assertion that unless the sound waves get to their ears and register in their brain then there is no sound. 



This brings us to Bishop Bally Berkeley who has been the cause of more arguments in this house than... well than my spending habits and the amount of orange juice teenage boys get through if you must know.  Bishop Berkeley (of Cloyne) was a dear old boy who was very keen on getting people to use pine tar, but he also advanced the theory now known as subjective idealism. This says that stuff only exists when it is perceived to do so. In other words when you leave the room, the table, chairs etc. all vanish because you aren't looking at them. This seems to be astonishingly arrogant. [In the Bishop's defence I admit he did say that since God is always perceiving everything the tables and chairs are actually still there.]  Besides, it would be utter chaos, with things appearing and disappearing all the time - and what about things you didn't notice? The other day I was looking for my glasses EVERYWHERE, and eventually found them in the refrigerator, where I had already looked several times and not seen them. Do you think this might have been due to a malfunction in the Subjective Idealism dynamic? No, I think I'm just a silly woman who couldn't see her glasses when she was looking straight at them. And what about things you did see, but have now forgotten about? How do they fit into the system, eh?

No, Bishop old chap, we've all come up with this idea - surely - in approximately our sixth year (it would be a blithe and heedless child whose mind it did not cross, would it not?), considered it, and then dismissed it as absurd and unworkable. Are there any subjective idealists over the age of 8? Unlikely. I can't see any in here, anyway, Heh heh!



Gratuitous picture of tree. This failed to win the local Tree Photograph Competition and I was very insulted.

Answers to Jane Eyre Questions 5 & 6

Question 5. “Reader, I married him.”

How far do you think the reaction of the housekeeper Mary to this news equates to the modern

vernacular,“Yeah right. Whatever.”?                                                                                             

 

Answer:
 “Yeah, right. Whatever,” implies indifference tinged with a hint of disbelief, and is usually used rather offensively. In fact in the past a parent might justifiably have biffed a teenager for voicing the phrase, although this form of admonishment is no longer allowed.

     The housekeeper’s response - she said only “Have you, miss? Well, for sure!” - seems on the surface to be alike in that it appears indifferent (most women fly into high excitement at tidings of a wedding), which lack of reaction might also indicate disbelief of the news itself. If so that trace of disbelief is then offensive in suggesting that a lie has been told.

     But Mary, when told by Jane Eyre that she has married Mr Rochester, only feigned indifference, for fun and out of a sense of propriety.    

     Neither did she disbelieve the information. Her husband John had already told her that he thought Mr Rochester would marry Jane, so she was ready for the news.

     Thirdly, she did not mean to be offensive – only she was rather amused.

     So Mary’s reaction, on examination, does not equate to “Yeah, right. Whatever” on any of the three criteria – indifference, disbelief or offensiveness.



Yeah, right. Whatever.

 

 

Question 6. Were John Reed and Jane Eyre really of the same blood? It seems curious to think it.

Comment.

State whether, given the chance, you would like to wring Jane’s neck.                                          

 
Answer:
 John Reed’s father and Jane Eyre’s mother were, apparently, full siblings.

Yet John Reed was thoroughly unpleasant and acted appallingly throughout the narrative, coming to a bad end as befits such a reprehensible person. Jane, in contrast, was quite wonderful, without blemish of any kind as we are repeatedly told from start to finish, and gained (therefore) a happy outcome.

It is certainly unusual for two members of the same family to be so annoying in such very different ways.

Candidates may cite the Nature versus Nurture debate, but should point out that the situation here flies in the face of current psychological teaching which insists that kindness and love are good and cruel neglect is bad. In the novel the ministrations of a doting, besotted mother resulted in a horrible boy, while a desolate childhood devoid of affection gave forth the angelic Jane with all her blameless virtues. That ruins the "Nurture" argument.

As for the "Nature", one can only conclude that Mr Reed and Mrs Eyre had recessive genes and the two cousins inherited all their characteristics from the other parents. Either that or Mrs Reed strayed and John and Jane actually share no genes.

 

     Candidates may be forgiven for expressing a wish to wring Jane’s neck. Her resolute integrity certainly makes her a little tedious, not to say wet and infuriating. The unbelievable pieces of good luck which befell her – her wandering penniless to the door of strangers who turned out to be her own cousins; her sudden inheritance of a vast fortune; the undying love of Mr Rochester and his timely widowhood – serve to turn the reader against her, and a murderous reaction is quite natural.

     Extra marks will be awarded to candidates who express the opinion that if Jane is meant to be a self-portrait of the author then Charlotte Brontë could do with being strangled as well.

    The examiners feel it their duty here to stress the following : killing people is illegal and furthermore it directly contravenes the Sixth Commandment so it would be better really if candidates contented themselves with administering a playful smack around the face with a wet fish in both cases.

I DARE you. I DARE you to wet fish me.

Go on then - wet fish her. I dare you.

Answers to Jane Eyre Questions 3 & 4

Question 3.  Could Rochester’s ward Adèle have made a valuable member of The Clash?
Explain your answer.                                                                                                                       

Answer:
 The needy child Adèle enjoyed attention and would have taken to the stage eagerly with the Clash, wanting the limelight. But her value to the band would have been in her novelty and therefore by its very nature short-lived.

     It is hard to imagine this shallow, trite little creature contributing much – if anything – to their oeuvre. Certainly she would have been ill at ease working with the subtleties of the Clash’s characteristic minor keys (consider ‘London Calling’ and the plaintive yet menacing use of the key of E minor), preferring the kittenish lightheartedness of C, say, or F♯, majors. It is unlikely that she would embrace the electric guitar with any skill, and drumming would be unthinkable for a child of her  class and background. Indeed these instruments were entirely unfamiliar to her. She probably knew little of punk, ska, dub or reggae. Her training in the performing arts was limited to a small amount of rudimentary tuition in classical ballet techniques and light French opera, which are somewhat irrelevant here.

     Her attitude also presents a difficulty. The members of the Clash tended to be rebellious, angry and anti-establishment, while in contrast Adèle maintained a pliant, eager-to-please demeanour always trying to gain approval. She might well have found it hard to overcome this in order to smash a valuable musical instrument on stage or to spend her evenings boozing in squalid hotel rooms.

Surely this can't be Adèle?    No, it isn't.

    
  Her stagewear would be a problem as well. Adèle favoured gowns covered in lace flounces and silly frills all of which were perfectly ironed and smelling of fresh lavender water – whereas the Clash gave no thought for their clothing, dressing in tatty old T shirts and torn jeans. Her incongruous outfits might have evinced some initial thrill in the mosh pit - thanks to the shock of the unexpected - but it is doubtful whether such originality would provide a longlasting appeal for diehard fans of the genre.

     And so candidates should opt for keeping her out of the line-up for the foreseeable future.

    

 

 

 

Question 4.  Estimate Rochester’s emotional age, giving an account of your reasoning.

      

Answer:
Rochester conducted himself like a spoilt toddler for the majority of the novel. His customary tantrum-throwing placed him within the "terrible twos" age group familiar to parents of any normal infant. He spurned the idea of fending for himself, looking instead to Jane to become a mother figure to pander to his whims. From these traits one might estimate his emotional age to be 24 months or thereabouts.

     He was willing to toy callously with the emotions and welfare of his acquaintances; and activities such as his deceitful courting of Blanche Ingram in order to make Jane jealous, and his locking up of Bertha Mason, were not unlike the deliberate, unthinking savagery of 7-year-old boys who torture insects by pulling off their wings. An emotional age of 7 years is also consistent with his habit of adopting a scowling sulkiness when denied his own way.

     His brave attempt, when he was biologically about 40, to rescue Bertha from the fire suggests a recklessness more commonly associated with teenage boys of, perhaps, 18 years of age. The dissolute existence he waged in Europe adds credence to this evaluation, as does his tendency to multiple love affairs.

     He ignored the mores of the society within which he lived (imagining for example that he could engage in a bigamous marriage rather than bear the consequences of the foolish actions of his youth) in order to pursue a life of utter selfishness. This in itself, unfortunately, is not something which necessarily indicates any particular age group, since the sad fact is that there are many people at large who continue blithely to coast along in this vein till the end of their days; so we gain no insight into Rochester's emotional age from this observation.

     Thus we see behaviours appropriate to a 2-year-old, a 7-year-old and an 18-year-old. Averaging gives a 9 year old, and a deeply flawed one at that.   
  

Naughty Mr Rochester! You've been very bad, haven't you?
Yes, Mummy. Sorry, Mummy.

   

 

                                                                                                                             

Answers to Jane Eyre Exam Questions 1 & 2

 

 

Question 1. Would you prefer to read a book whose first sentence was

“It was the morning of my 83^rd birthday, and I was in bed with Mr Rochester’s catamites when Grace Poole pranced into the room with her troupe of performing parrots, to announce that the Holy Father was waiting to see me.”

or one which started

“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.”?

Do you think Jane Eyre would have been a better novel if it had begun with the former?          

Give your reasons.                                                                                                          

 

Answer:

Candidates may opt for either choice as a preferable start for a novel.

 

Reasons for preferring the first are :  it tells us much about the protagonist in only one sentence. Although the sex of this intriguing person is not disclosed we learn that he or she is elderly yet remains vigorous, is given to catamite-frenzies, possesses a colourful entourage, and has the ear of the Pope. This tantalising glimpse leaves us eager to know more –  How many catamites are there?  Will Rochester mind?  Might the parrots take fright?  What does the Holy Father want? – and so we read on keenly. A lively story seems likely to follow, full of interest and surprises.

The other sentence however, may augur a dull tale of timid people who dare not venture out of doors if a light rain threatens.

 

Reasons for preferring the latter are :  the 83^rd birthday sentence discloses more than the reader can want to know about this dissolute and uninhibited narrator. There are catamites - and the person they are cavorting with isn’t even their owner! There’s a woman with parrots! The Pope is involved, even! This warns us that many an unsavoury incident could lurk within the ensuing pages.  It sounds as though it is all going to be highly improbable as well, making it difficult to empathise with the characters.

The simple sentence about not going out, in contrast, reveals little yet involves the reader immediately in the world of the narrator and invites him to share the narrator’s concerns – What day? Who are these people? Why won’t they be walking? Where won’t they be walking? What might they do instead? All these questions remain to be answered in a much more comfortable read. Sure enough in the second sentence of the novel we discover that these enigmatic characters have spent the earlier part of the day wandering in a leafless shrubbery: what could be safer and more domestic than that? The text that begins like this is unlikely to challenge or distress the reader in any way.

 

On the question of whether Jane Eyre would have been a better novel if it had begun with the 83^rd birthday sentence, candidates should mention merely that it would have been a quite different novel, neither better nor worse necessarily. Jane Eyre as it exists is generally thought to be a very fine novel.

Our old friend the Shrubbery.    This one has got leaves, though.

 

 

Question 2. Explain the significance of Jane’s moustache in the novel.

 How would her fate have differed if

a) she had been able to grow a luxuriant full beard,

b) present-day laser treatments for facial hair removal had been available?                      

 

Answer:

This is a trick question because there is no mention of any moustache in the novel. Candidates must point this out, and see the moustache as a metaphor for Jane’s plainness.
Hence they should answer the question as if it read
Explain the significance of Jane’s plainness in the novel.

How would her fate have differed if

a) she had been really monstrously ugly,
b) present-day plastic surgery techniques had been available?

 

Part a) therefore is correctly answered, - if Jane had been monstrously ugly people would have shuddered to look at her; her early childhood would have been much the same as documented, but later, no-one would have employed her and her cousins would have run her out of town rather than welcoming her. It seems unlikely that Mr Rochester would have fallen for her in the first place, but had he done so it would have been to Jane's advantage when he became blind, and a great worry to her when his sight seemed to be returning.

Part b) is answered, - if she could have afforded it Jane would have been able to undergo various pieces of cosmetic surgery, and with luck rendered herself a bit more attractive. Given her docile and accepting nature it is reasonable to suppose that she would have eschewed any such opportunities and elected to remain plain, trusting to her saintliness as her principal weapon in the battle for Mr Rochester’s affections.

 

As for the significance of her plainness, the book tells the story of Jane’s rise from a position where she had no advantages – no money, no kind parents, no influential friends, no skills, and to cap it all she had been singularly ill-served in the looks department. She made her life better – won Mr Rochester with all that he entailed – purely by the exercise of her sweet disposition and goodness, unaided by any fair complexion, dear little retroussée nose, enormous blue eyes, Cupid’s-bow lips or mane of luscious auburn hair.

If she had been beautiful she could have used her loveliness to gain favours galore. It is a rare woman who, having the benefit of beauty, does not use it thus. And so it would have been impossible to retain the integrity of the story without keeping Jane Eyre plain.



Good Heavens. Jane. Calm down. Calm down at once.   And you, Gentlemen, you calm down too.

 

 

 

 

 

Jane Eyre Exam

Here is an Examination Paper. 

 

Insider Information: Question 2 is unfair and refers to private family mythology about a film version of Jane Eyre in which the actress playing Jane Eyre is considered to be in need of a shave.

 

 
 

ENGLISH EXAMINATION PAPER

Jane Eyre

 

Answer all questions.  Time allowed: 2 hours

 

1.  Would you prefer to read a book whose first sentence was

           “It was the morning of my 83^rd birthday, and I was in bed with Mr Rochester’s catamites when Grace Poole pranced into the room with her troupe of performing parrots, to announce that the Holy Father was waiting to see me.”

      or one which started

            “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.”?

      
           Do you think Jane Eyre would have been a better novel if it had begun with the former?          
 

  Give your reasons.                                                                                                                   (20 marks)

 

 

2.  Explain the significance of Jane’s moustache in the novel.

    
     How would her fate have differed if

          a) she had been able to grow a luxuriant full beard,

         b) present-day laser treatments for facial hair removal had been available?                                (20 marks)

 

 

3.  Could Rochester’s ward Adèle have made a valuable member of The Clash?

    Explain your answer.                                                                                                                 (16 marks)

 

 

4.  Estimate Rochester’s emotional age, giving an account of your reasoning.                                     (14 marks)

 

 

5.  “Reader, I married him.”

     How far do you think the reaction of the housekeeper Mary to this news equates to the modern

vernacular, “Yeah right. Whatever.”?                                                                                              (16 marks)

 

 

6.  Were John Reed and Jane Eyre really of the same blood? It seems curious to think it.

     Comment.

     State whether, given the chance, you would like to wring Jane’s neck.                                           (14 marks)

 

 




Watch it, Buster...
I've got the moral high ground, and I won't hesitate to use it

 

 

Correct Answers are available from G-AHLK Examining Board.
 

 

Radio 4 and the Present Tense

"It's 1806, and Beethoven is writing his 4th Piano Concerto".



Now there's a phrase guaranteed to make me seethe. 
Sentences like that are frequently imposed on us by the BBC.
"NO!" I tell them, "It's 25 past 9 in the morning and Beethoven finished writing his 4th Piano Concerto 206 years ago at least. I have a CD of the complete work right here." 

On Radio 4 they ruin nearly every interesting programme that I want to hear, by insisting on using the present tense when talking about events of the distant past. It irritates me so sorely that I HAVE to switch the wireless off, however much I would like to hear about Beethoven.

Melvyn Bragg (Lord) makes a radio series called In Our Time in which he gets eminent academics from Oxford etc. to talk to the listeners as though to a bunch of pre-schoolers. If you write in and complain they

i) make fun of you, and

ii) say they have to use the present tense to make the history sound more vibrant and immediate.

I take this as a major insult to my intellect (such as it is).

The other reason they should not do it, is that it causes them to be unable to make it clear what they mean when describing a sequence of events - in order to stick to their daft present-tense guns they have to have everything happening at once. Eg. They would have us believe that Beethoven is writing the 4th Piano Concerto NOW! AS WE GO TO AIR! despite the fact it is (apparently) also 1815 and he is taking over custody of his nephew, and it is 1792 as well and he's studying counterpoint with Haydn. Amazing since at the same time he is additionally in his grave where he has lain for 1.86 centuries dead, may his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed by the mercy of God rest in peace Amen.

 

Beethoven. What a dude.

 

Donald Macleod on Radio 3 manages perfectly well to present Composer of the Week without recourse to pretending it's all taking place while he speaks and as such I shall continue to get my Beethoven-related information from him not Lord M Bragg. I suggest Lord M Bragg listens to a few of those broadcasts and reflects on the fact that it is possible to make an engaging, understandable programme without any need  to patronise the listeners by implying that they are all half-witted toddlers with attention spans of approx. 1 attosecond.

 

 

 

Finally, as any fule kno, Julius Caesar said not "venio, video, vinco," but "veni, vidi, vici" using quite correctly the perfect tense.

If he were to be interviewed on In Our Time for a programme about his war with Pharnaces II of Pontus (a typical subject for In Our Time) would they tell him to say "I come, I see, I conquer"? - presumably whilst chewing gum and punching the air? They wouldn't dare. J Caesar would have no truck with such nonsense and if Lord Bragg tried to force the point he would find he'd been fed to the lions and rightly so.

And that pun of Gen. Napier's about peccavi meaning "I have Sindh" wouldn't have worked on M Bragg's watch either. "Pecco"? I'm sinning? They'd have thought he'd lost it, bigtime,* not conquered Sindh as he meant.

 

 

 

 *to "lose it bigtime" means to take leave of one's senses.

Scene: British War Office.
An underling enters.
Underling : "Sir, a telegram from General Napier, sir."
Prime Minister (reads telegram, looks puzzled) : "What the devil?... 'Pecco'? Feller's gorn stark mad!"
Underling : "It means 'I'm sinning,' sir. It may be in code."
Prime Minister : "Not if I know young Napier... I wonder what the rascal's up to, heh! Heh!... (his face falls) Good God, m'daughter's out there... Order him shot - effective immediately."