JACK, MAURICE (1994 - ) Badly behaved child. For three months, until his expulsion, my Thursday evening Cung-Coe classes were ruined by Maurice Jack's apparent conviction that I don't know what I'm doing. Despite his know it all attitude, he made zero progress in the internal disciplines of Fortitude and Assimilation necessary to any serious student of the art's practical techniques. For successive weeks, he botched the mandatory recitation of Rudyard Kipling's If...., a failure compounded by his inability to attune himself to the hall environment by negotiating his way to the caretaker's room blindfolded while I distracted him with my duck horn. Rather than resolve to do better next time, though, he persisted in undermining my authority with a succession of muttered observations about my own capabilities. Leaving the hall one night, ostensibly to answer a call of nature, I listened from the doorway as he assumed the role of Sensei Coe to satirical effect, making particular reference to my Pashley Picador, an easy target for jokers who forget that the damage to my inner ear amounts to a disability. Returning quickly, I caught all four students in attendance circuiting the hall on imaginary Picadors, brows furrowed, cheeks bulging and eyes ringed by spectacles formed with their fingers. While I expected no better of Jack, I was disappointed by the enthusiastic participation of Connor Sumner and the Lang twins. To their credit, all three apologised, though I felt that Matthew Lang only did so under duress from his parents.

 

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