English · Chapter 24
Study notes aligned to the official NEB syllabus.
"Refund" is a one act farce by the Hungarian writer and humourist Fritz Karinthy (1887 to 1938), adapted for the stage from his own story. Karinthy wrote sketches, parodies and satires, and his comic method is to take one absurd idea seriously and follow it to its end. A middle aged man returns to his old school eighteen years after leaving it and demands back the fees his father paid, because the education taught him nothing and has left him unable to earn a living. The school, to protect its money, proves that he learned everything, and the comedy lies in watching a man fight to be declared a failure and lose.
Wasserkopf is the middle aged former pupil who brings the claim. He is loud, rude and quite shameless, ready to insult the men who taught him in order to get his money. Life has gone badly for him, and instead of blaming himself he has settled on the school as the cause. He is not stupid, since the scheme he arrives with is clever, and his name, which suggests a water head in German, is part of the joke against him. His weakness is temper, and once the masters begin agreeing with everything he says he loses all self control and so loses the case.
The Principal is the head of the school and the guardian of its money and its reputation. Courteous, cautious and entirely practical, he is startled by the demand but does not argue about principle. He turns to the school regulations, finds a clause allowing a refund to a former pupil who can prove that he learned nothing, and then calls his staff together and organises the counter plot that saves the fees.
The Mathematics Master, the Physics Master and the History and Geography Master are the examiners, and each performs the same trick in his own subject, receiving a ridiculous answer and explaining with perfect gravity why it is in fact correct.
The Class Master taught Wasserkopf himself and knows the man in front of him. He joins the plan to accept every answer, and the united front of the whole staff is what defeats the claim.