Forty Minutes Late

"You're considerable late sir--our people have been in their--"

"I am what!" I cried, straightening up.

"I said you were forty minutes late, sir. We expect our lecturers to be on--"

That was the fulminate that exploded the bomb. Up to now I had held myself in hand. I was carrying, I knew, 194 pounds of steam, and I also knew that one shovel more of coal would send the entire boiler into space, but through it all I had kept my hand on the safety-valve. It might have been the white waistcoat or the way the curved white collar cupped his billiard-ball of a chin, or it might have been the slight frown about his eyebrows, or the patronizing smile that drifted over his freshly laundered face; or it might have been the deprecating gesture with which he consulted his watch: whatever it was, out went the boiler.

"Late! Are you the man that's running this lecture course?"

"Well, sir, I have the management