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Once, in “Weedy” Wilson’s French class, David Chalmers had been asked to read a passage from the textbook. David wasn’t a gifted student and his speech was full of awful mispronunciations and hesitations. One pause, however, was longer than usual, and caused both “Weedy” and the other boys in the class to look across at David and see what the hold up was. David was still looking at the text, but had a slightly strained expression on his face. Then he farted a fart that had the metal radiators vibrating like tuning forks, before smiling slyly as the rest of the class broke spontaneously into fits of laughter.
“Silence!” shouted Weedy.
“Sorry, sir!” said David, still smiling. “It just slipped out.”
More laughter ensued and “Weedy” had to silence us again. “If that should happen,” he foolishly explained, “you should simply say ‘Excuse me’ and we can move on with the lesson. There is no need for laughter. Understood?”
Nobody said anything.
“Is that understood?”
“Yes sir!” we replied.
“Right,” continued Weedy. “Preston, continue reading where Chalmers left off.”
Colin Preston began reading, but was soon interrupted by, David Chalmers saying, “Excuse me!”
Preston continued.
“Excuse me!” said Duncan McPherson.
“Oh, excuse me!” said David Lalley a few moments later.
“Weedy” halted the reading and made us open our jotters to complete a translation in silence. But it wasn’t very silent. Because every few seconds a small, “Excuse me!” would resonate from some schoolboy or other.
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