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Today's quote:

Sunday, July 27, 2025

The cat barely moved!

 

Read along here

 

This short story by W. Somerset Maugham, "The Verger", is beautifully read by Dean Robert of Canterbury Cathedral on a cold winter's night in England. Of the many short stories by Somerset Maugham, it is one of my favourites, and I have listened to it several times while at the same time keeping an eye on the cat. The cat barely moved!

The story is about a church verger named Foreman who loves this job which he does well but is fired because he can neither read nor write. Foreman then starts his own business. Years later, when he is at the bank to sign some papers, the manager is surprised at Foreman's success in business despite the fact that he can neither read nor write.

Unlike Verger Foreman, I learned the three 'R's of reading, writing, and arithmetic but only to minimum Year 8, as my parents couldn't afford to spend money on higher education. This condemned me for the rest of my working life to second-best, had I not tried my luck in Australia.

Every time I come to the finale in this story where the bank manager asks (and I'm paraphrasing), "Good God, man, what would you be now if you'd had higher education?", I feel like saying, "I can tell you that, sir, I would have spent my whole working life in Germany, working 9-to-5 in some mundane job, before collecting my gold watch on retirement."

 

 

The story was made into quite a charming movie but why watch the movie when you can watch the cat while listening to Dean Robert?

 


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