[originaltext] Matthew Hobbs was sixteen years old. He had been at the same

Matthew Hobbs was sixteen years old. He had been at the same school for five years, and he had always been a very bad pupil. He was lazy, he fought with other pupils, he was rude to the teachers and he did not obey the rules of the school. His headmaster tried to make him work and behave better, but he was never successful—and the worst thing was that, as Matthew grew older, he had a bad influence on the younger boys.
    Then at last Matthew left school. He tried to get a job with a big company, and the manager wrote to the headmaster to find out what he could say about Matthew.
    The headmaster wanted to be honest, but he also did slot want to be too bad. It took him sometime to think and he wrote, "If you can get Matthew Hobbs to work for you, you will be very lucky."