Vice Versa, or a Lesson to Fathers

Thomas Anstey Guthrie (1856 - 1934), was an English novelist and journalist, who wrote his comic novels under the pseudonym F. Anstey. After college he was called to the bar but the success of Vice Versa in 1882 gave him a reputation as a humorist. Vice Versa tells the story of a substitution of a father for his schoolboy son. Paul Bulitiude is a businessman whose son Dick is about to leave for boarding school. Dr. Grimstone is the cane-wielding headmaster. When Paul sees his son is afraid of leaving for school he says that the school years were the best and he wishes he could go back to those times. Thanks to a magic stone brought by an uncle from India, which grants the possessor one wish, Dick, now holding the stone, is ordered by his father to turn him back into his own body. Dick has other ideas and decides instead to become his father. Mr. Bultitude has to leave for his son's boarding school, while Dick gets a chance to run his father's business.