Michael Bryant credited as playing...
Max Staefel
- [Chips and Staefel are discussing Katie, Chips's new wife]
- Max Staefel: Oh, dear fellow, dear fellow, I hope you've been wise.
- Chips: Of course, I've been wise you old idiot.
- Max Staefel: A pretty face is not everything, you know, dear fellow. There's so many questions of temperament and suitability.
- Chips: "Suitability?" That's a horrible word, Max. It isn't even in the dictionary.
- Max Staefel: It's in Webster.
- Chips: Oh, Webster. Are you implying she's unsuitable to me?
- Max Staefel: I'm simply wondering is she's suitable... as your wife.
- [after Katie flees to London, afraid she will cause a scandal for Chips]
- Chips: That's a bloody silly word! "Suitability."
- Max Staefel: I didn't invent it.
- Chips: How do *I* know?
- Max Staefel: It's in Webster!
- Chips: Well, I'm not going to let it happen, Max!
- [Chips runs down the street and jumps onto a passing bus, headed for London. Clinging to the side of the bus, he shouts back]
- Chips: Apollo has willed it!
- Katie: Ursula, darling, you must see the bell tower. And here's your guide
- [pointing to Herr Staefel]
- Katie: .
- Ursula: The bell tower?
- [realizing Katie's unspoken intention]
- Ursula: Oh, yes, of course... the bell tower!
- [laughs]
- Ursula: [Later...]
- Max Staefel: I hope you like early English perpendicular.
- Ursula: Darling, I revel in early English perpendicular!
- Chips: He plainly thinks I'm a bloody sadist.
- Max Staefel: My dear fellow, that's the first time I ever heard you swear.
- Chips: There has to be a first time for everything.
- Max Staefel: What do they call you?
- Chips: "Ditchie."
- Max Staefel: Ditchie? That's not too bad.
- Chips: It's short for "ditchwater," and that is a simile for "dull."
- Max Staefel: I don't think the boys do dislike you.
- Chips: Yes, they do. I can't blame them. If I were one of them, I'd dislike myself, I think.
- Chips: What is a worse failure than a teacher who can't make his pupils grasp the importance of what he has to teach? Can you answer me that?
- Max Staefel: Yes. A teacher who doesn't try to.
- Price: My dear Baxter, what an absurd fuss over a game of tennis.
- Max Staefel: A game of tennis? It is the final of the Junior Cup.
- Price: It's still a game of pat-ball over a net with a piece of framed catgut - and an unworthy subject for a quarrel between housemasters.
- Chips: It was all rather a pity. Until that moment, I'd found her really, rather surprisingly, civilized. Tiny little thing, very pretty hair. But, why pick on me? An old stick in the mud.
- Max Staefel: It's a very accurate description of you.
- Chips: Don't rub it in, Max.
- Max Staefel: Oh, dear fellow. I do hope you've been wise.
- Chips: Of course I've been wise, you old idiot.
- Max Staefel: The world has grown a little unlovely, don't you think? No, of course you don't. How lucky you English are. And how little you always appreciate it.