On the Seeming Agelessness of Detectives and Their Watsons

From Chapter Two of Death of a Commuter by Leo Bruce (London, 1967), p. 28; Carolus Deene, the senior history master of the Queen’s School, Newminster, has been obliged by Mr. Gorringer, the headmaster, to endure the ‘odious’ and ‘unspeakable’ schoolboy Rupert Priggley as his private pupil over the summer vacation:

“Aren’t you ever going to be too old for The Queen’s School?” asked Carolus miserably.
“I don’t see why, sir.  Billy Bunter was fifty-seven years at school.