The government’s introduction of free primary education would seem to be a pretty good policy. There’s certainly nothing wrong in principle with providing children with an education at state expense. But in the unnamed country depicted in “Vengeful Creditor,” the policy is hugely unpopular with the social elite, who resent the fact that it’s now much harder for them to find young people to serve their needs.

Mr. and Mrs. Emenike, representatives of the social elite, are particularly unhappy with the new policy. Thanks to the introduction of free primary education, they’ve lost a number of servants recently who’ve gone back home to their villages instead of slaving away at domestic chores. Mrs. Emenike wonders how she will cope.

Mrs. Emenike’s superior attitude towards the lower classes comes out strongly when she makes one of her regular trips to the supermarket. As always, she expects to be waited on hand and foot by the grocery clerks. But thanks to the introduction of free primary education, there aren’t as many of them available as usual. Much to Mrs. Emenike’s horror, there aren’t enough of them to carry her groceries to her car.

Mr. Emenike is also very much a crashing snob. A government civil servant, he’s already an educated man and so doesn’t really appreciate what free education will mean to children who’ve never previously had one. As he reads The New Age newspaper each day, he’s pleased to see so many articles critical of the government’s education policy. They have been written by people from the same class as himself by so-called “responsible citizens” such as doctors, lawyers, and merchants.