The Cathedral of
Barchester is a blend of Canterbury, Salisbury, and Hereford.
M.R. JAMES
* * * * *
A SCHOOL STORY
Two men in a smoking-room were talking of their private-school days. 'At
_our_ school,' said A., 'we had a ghost's footmark on the staircase. What
was it like? Oh, very unconvincing. Just the shape of a shoe, with a
square toe, if I remember right. The staircase was a stone one. I never
heard any story about the thing. That seems odd, when you come to think
of it. Why didn't somebody invent one, I wonder?'
'You never can tell with little boys. They have a mythology of their own.
There's a subject for you, by the way--"The Folklore of Private
Schools".'
'Yes; the crop is rather scanty, though. I imagine, if you were to
investigate the cycle of ghost stories, for instance, which the boys at
private schools tell each other, they would all turn out to be
highly-compressed versions of stories out of books.'
'Nowadays the _Strand_ and _Pearson's_, and so on, would be extensively
drawn upon.'
'No doubt: they weren't born or thought of in _my_ time.
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