At a very large university there was a particularly nasty little professor who delighted in being vindictive and troublesome.
Quite why he chose this career is a mystery, for he hated all the students, and tended to think of them as rich middle-class layabouts.
He is presiding over a very important test in the absence of the usual professor who is off ill, in a large hall with hundreds of students in it, and he barks out every few minutes how long the test is to go – this of course flusters the students and is intentional.
“Right!” he roars, “Times up! Pens DOWN!”
Some students groan and he orders them to put their papers onto a large table nearby where he is standing. One student however is determined to finish the tests and the professor, for some odd reason, feigns not to notice. But to the more observant students they can see the professor looking sideways in the lone students direction. Presently a huge, and rather disorderly, pile of finished papers lies in a giant heap on the table. The student, some fifteen minutes after he should have finished, now comes forward with his paper.
“So, sir!” the professor says, his glasses gleaming with surpressed rage, “whilst all your compatriots hand their papers in on time, your lordship here must work to his own time, thank you very much. I presume you are going to tell me why I should not fail that paper?”
“I need to pass it sir, it is important.” the student says calmly.
“Oh I see – ” he breaks off to stare round at all the other students with evident satisfaction, “And all these persons here don’t consider it important? Or is the world specifically designed with you at the centre of it?”
There is a silence and the young man says, “Do you know who I am?”
“Oh,” says the professor, “That IS what you think? Mr Self Important here demands that I, a professor of some thirty years standing, should give preferential treatment to a mere boy who thinks he IS someone. Well, I am very pleased to say, that no, despite your arrgoance, despite your obvious superiority to everyone else, NO, I DON’T know who you are, and I far less care, because THAT paper in your hand will have FAILED on it by the end of the day.”
“You don’t know me? You don’t know my name?”
“No!” says the professor with no little sarcasm, “I am sorry to say, I DON’T!”
“Thought not.” he said and with that he throws his paper onto the floor and then with a swiftness that took the professor totally by surprise, sweeps all the other papers off the table on top of it, burying it completely.
Needless to say, not one student supplied the professor with the boy’s name!
