The worst House at Sherborough

"Now then, Hunter!"

"Well rowed, Bruce!"

Almost in equal volume came the two shouts, slightly varied, from five hundred throats, as Sherborough ran eagerly, a vast, struggling, pushing crowd beside the light whiffs that fought their way against a spring-flood current. Seldom did the School boast such an imposing river; seldom did those of poor wind find it so simple to keep up with a race.

Every one was there, in running kit. In fact, the last need not be added, for who would dare to risk the certain name of froust or slacker by coming down to run in every-day costume? Or who would venture not to run, in a school whose Latin motto bids her sons do even the least thing with a will?

But every one, at any rate, was there.

The last few weeks of Easter Term, a constant problem for master and for boy alike, are set aside at Sherborough for "tubbing," and the last day of all for a regatta. No one of course is at the top of his rowing form, nor are the times now made those quoted by Sherburians, when talking big of their aquatic skill; but the event serves as a sort of wintry foretaste of summer delights and gives the boys some interest in life. Other schools, on this last day, may lounge about with hands in bankrupt pockets and moan that football is over, cricket yet to come; but Sherborough, hoarse and stiff, rejoices that there always is the river.

"Put it on, Hunter! Spurt!"

"Well rowed, Bruce! Well rowed!"

There was no lack of cheering, even from fellows not in the same House as either of those in the final heat, for this is the Regatta's great event, no less than its last: the Gordon Sculls. The yells, however, that spurred the rival watermen, came with a very different note, and almost from a different spot.

Weston's, with those who favoured Bruce, ran in a solid phalanx, well ahead, and shouted with the happy joy of those who grasp success quite contrary to expectation. No one had ever thought Bruce would really beat Hunter, who won so easily last year. Jove, it was jolly good! So in ecstasy they shrieked out: "Well rowed, Bruce! Well rowed, sir! Oh, well rowed!" . . .

And almost with an interval between, the supporters of Hunter pounded unhappily along in all the gloom and depression of those who have hopes suddenly dashed into fragments. Every one had looked upon the Gordon cup almost as already on the Hall mantelpiece, and now----! With despairing energy, as though exhortation might induce its champion to do better, the School House chanted in a tone of grievance, "Row up, Hunter! Put it on, now! Spurt!" . . .

But suddenly things changed.

Opposite to the school boathouse the Sherborough course bends sharply to the left, four hundred yards or so before the finish, and round that corner swirls the full force of the spring floods.

Hunter knew that, and had husbanded his strength. Bruce knew it also, but was younger. Plug--plug--plug, with all his energy he had set off at the start, and as he drew ahead, the excitement of success, those wild cheers from the bank, the whistles, rattles, and triumphant pistol-shots, had lent force to his arms, had ruined his young judgment. Gradually that fine swing which had drawn him on in front became an agonizing effort. Could he last out? He was not sure. Elation began to give way, in himself, to doubt. Should he have gone a little easier at first? These thoughts thrust themselves upon him as he pulled mechanically at his sculls, comforted by glances at the stretch of water between his rival and himself, but always with a growing sense of effort. Then--the corner . . . !

Almost with the shock of shipwreck, his frail whiff plunged into the turgid stream.

Plug--plug--plug: but no! There is a limit to that policy, and Bruce's strength was done. He knew it, too, knew that he was beaten. Not perhaps by Hunter, who might be equally rowed out, but beaten by the stream. He gathered all his will and energy together, gritted his teeth in the heroic strain, but with every moment the wind-swept flood seemed growing in its strength, with every moment those cheers of triumph more ironical.

Not so to Hunter. An oar of less experience might have been hustled into a spurt by the sense of failure or by the despairing cries of his discouraged partisans. Hunter, however, had rowed for two years in the Crew and won the Gordon Sculls before; he had confidence and judgment, could afford to wait. He did not trouble about Bruce, or where he was. He only knew that he himself was doing all the work that he could do in this big stream, if he had still to row that quarter-mile against the wind and the full current. Supposing Bruce could go faster than himself now, and yet do that last bit,--why, Bruce deserved to win, and would!

So Dick Hunter sculled contentedly along behind, hearing the two roars but knowing that he must keep to his strategy, until the corner came.

Then, warned by that same impact of the waters, he called upon himself for the great effort. No one was watching him with any care except his coach, who alone understood the odd conditions of this race; so no one saw his firm lips close more tightly yet, or noted how he suddenly went forward with arms still more tense and face more resolute.

Could he? He could! A clean, good pull, and the whiff leapt forward in triumph over the protesting current. Dick could feel the movement, almost as of a human adversary yielding in a wrestling bout. And again nobody except his coach, an Old Boy once of the School House, saw how his face lit up of a sudden with the joy of a good fight, and almost with the bliss of conquest.

Indeed, as is usual on these occasions, nobody saw anything at all of this important moment. The Westonites were still shrieking themselves hoarse in triumph, as the straight reach brought the winning-post in sight; the School House, ever deeper in despair, had almost ceased to shout at all. Among themselves, jogging along, they muttered darkly, "He's lost! He's not trying! Must be ill, or something;" and then raggedly the vain cry came, "Oh, buck up, Hunter. Spurt!"

But the Old Boy saw--and knew. He looked onward to Bruce, splashing in battle with the waves; he looked again at Hunter, sculling cleanly; and as a Cambridge Blue, he knew. He raised his megaphone and shouted.

"That's it!" he yelled; his voice breaking with excitement. "That's the way. Oh, excellent!"

Every one was startled. Had the man one mad? Excellent, indeed, with Bruce lengths on ahead!

But then they looked in turn, and they too saw. Hunter was making her shift! The spurt, for which they all had yelled, had come at last.

In one moment everything was changed.

"Good man! Good man! Hooray! Excellent! You're gaining on him now! Go on!"--thus did they howl incoherently, these experts who just now had said, "He's lost."

The Westonites, astounded by this sudden uproar, looked around, and they, too, saw. The race had seemed at an end, with their man leading by so much, and nobody had worried at the slower pace. That was quite natural in such floods. They trotted on, cheering quietly and saving their lungs for the final roar.

But now these complacent cheers gave place to warnings.

"Look out, Bruce! Buck up! He's spurting." Now, indeed, it was their turn to cry out for a spurt.

And Bruce could not oblige. Valiantly he tried--but failed. If ever a man was thoroughly rowed out, the Westonites had him now for their inspection.

"He's done." "Dead beat." "Hunter's gaining!" Such were the dull murmurs that went round among them. And with a despair worse because it followed upon triumph, they took up the School House's now abandoned cry of "Spurt!"

There wasn't time, it wasn't possible: that, by now, became their consolation, as they jogged on at a walking pace and whispered. Anxiously they looked around and began to calculate what lead Bruce had. Six lengths, said one. No; more like ten, another. Ten? Why, it was only four or five, if that!

The thing was difficult, because the field of observation varied. Every moment brought the boats closer together, until by now the rival crowds had grown to be but one again, nor was it any longer possible to separate the cries. A vague tumult, deafening and senseless, came from the vast mob.

Was there really time?

The Blue, towering above them, wondered. Certainly a chance! . . . And full of admiration for this sporting youngster, he shouted constantly through his tin megaphone, "Well done, sir. Now you've got him. Keep it up!" He knew the value of encouragement.

But Hunter needed none. The thing had been thought out, and now that he had reached the spot where all his energy was needed, no one need fear that he would offer less. Splendidly regular, with long-drawn sweeps, he pulled his whiff along the outer station, whilst Bruce, who scarcely seemed to move, fought his way gallantly beneath the inner bank.

"Bruce! Bruce! Now then, Bruce!" yelled the despairing Westonites, and some of them ran onward to the finish, as though their presence there must somehow draw him on. In frantic excitement they shouted and gesticulated from that point of vantage.

"Well rowed, Hunter! Well rowed, sir! You're winning! Hunter, Hunter!"

Hoarsely croaked the School House boys, and almost afraid to hope, measured with anxious eyes the lessening space between the boats, until-- moment of transport and of noise quite indescribable!--the bow of one had overlapped the other's rudder. Then indeed the Blue, the only man who had a cartridge left, fired into the air three times.

It was a signal.

He had looked on to the finish, thirty yards ahead; he knew that his man was half dead, but Bruce was worse; the thing seemed possible; one couldn't miss the chance; and so----! The three shots spoke this message, pre-arranged, "Use your every inch of strength: it's worth it, even if you bust your heart! You will not win without."

And Hunter answered it. Sherburians who were there still speak of that last spurt; how Hunter, who seemed doing all he could already, heard the signal pre-arranged for only desperate need, and did about three times as much; how under that supreme endeavour his whiff shot through the angry waves; how Bruce, no less aware what those shots meant, tensed all his muscles and tried bravely, but could not; how every one shouted nobody knew what; how the official umpire danced in agony of mind, his eyes glancing from pole to pole; and how to those who watched, the two whiffs, in very different style, seemed to cross that imaginary line at the same instant and nobody knew which had won; but how the umpire, with those two poles to guide him beyond doubt or error, leapt around and cried out loudly, "Hunter wins!"

Then there was babel absolute. Even the Sefton match, that great event of Sherborough's year, has not heard such applause as this, for here was a race such as a man shall not see twice in his lifetime; and everybody must cheer Hunter,--yes, and Bruce.

Neither of them heard, of course. Bent over their sculls, which ploughed the waves, they paid the tribute to Nature, whom they had defied. Only as the river, finally triumphant, threatened to sweep them backward to shipwreck and destruction, did some instinct, the instinct of an oarsman, seem to warn them that this was not the time for rest. Very wearily they turned, and were borne easily, by a stream now their friend again, to the school boathouse and the welcome shore.

Helter-skelter the School rushed to get there first, and when Dick brought his whiff alongside the pontoon, arriving first by the victor's immemorial right, there were a hundred hands anxious to take it in, and more that longed to carry him up to the House. Tired and white, he smiled faintly as he was swamped in the vast surge, and when redoubled cheers welcomed his jerky reappearance aloft on his admirers' shoulders, there was something in his face that would have struck a close observer as neither happiness nor triumph.

Boys are not observant, nor indeed if any one of them had noticed, would he have put it down to anything but Hunter's well-known modesty. Women, however, have a keener eye for drama, and as the procession moved noisily away, the mother of a School House boy turned to the Head Master and laughingly exclaimed, "Well, I must say he doesn't look exactly pleased!"

"He is famous for his modesty, I believe," said Mr. Giffard, and he smiled.

The parent raised her lorgnettes to get a final glance and did not seem quite satisfied with what she saw. "But he looks just as though he were trying not to cry. Perhaps it's excitement? . . . Or is he leaving, poor boy?"

"No, we hope to have him for another year," quietly replied the master.

But he hesitated before speaking, and this observant woman felt that there was some mystery she had not probed. However, if observant, she also was polite and social decency demanded that she should not probe it!

"He's very strong, for a boy," she remarked, instead; "isn't he? He's really much more like an undergraduate."

"Yes," the Head Master agreed. "He is a strong fellow, very,--physically. He is our goalkeeper, Hunter; and in the Crew as well. A splendid all-round man, in fact."

This answer served somehow only to whet the hearer's curiosity. Decidedly, she fancied, there had been an emphasis on that word "physically." Had the poor fellow got into some scrape? She must not ask, she knew; the master's final words were obviously meant to close the topic; but in her mind she made a note of the name Hunter. She would see whether her son knew why this nice-looking boy with the clear-cut face and the dark eyes was so sad in the moment of his triumph. . . .

Up the river-bank and through the gateway into the school grounds the tangled knot of boys pursued a most uneven way. Above their heads, upon a moving seat of shoulders, the poor victor-victim bobbed in an unheroic manner. Cheering his success, mocking his agony, foiling his efforts at escape, they rushed him pell-mell to the School House porch, and dropped him with loud cries of "Speech!"

It was not by any means the first time that Dick Hunter had returned home in this honourable but painful fashion. Usually, at this stage of the ceremony he had made a few humorous remarks, mainly about his wounds, and so thankfully escaped to the changing-room, while they indulged in three more cheers. To-day, however, as he stood upon the steps and faced his captors, there was sadness in his eyes and for a moment he said nothing; then "Thanks, thanks awfully," came as with an effort, in low, serious tones; and Hunter, turning rapidly aside, had gone along to his own study.

Then even the boys noticed.

"I say," said Phelps, Captain of Boats and a Prefect, "I hope he isn't feeling rotten? It must have been a ghastly strain."

"Oh no," answered Alan Scott, Dick's greatest friend; "he said he felt as fit as anything."

That reassured them, for anything from Scott was just as though it had come straight from Hunter, and they went away.

Phelps turned to Scott. "Why don't you go and cheer the old bird up, Alan? I didn't like his look a bit."

"No, and he was just like that this morning, too; been mooning about alone all day. Thought it was nerves about the race. . . . But I think I'll go and see if I can't stir him up. So long!"

Inside his study, Dick, triumph forgotten, sat with his forehead on his hand and read for the hundredth time that day a letter from his father.

". . . Try not to blame me, old fellow;"--so ran the bit that he was reading now--"we've always been good pals, haven't we? and if I didn't tell you before, it was for the simple reason that I didn't know. The thing seemed absolutely safe. I thought I should clear a nice sum and make things easier for you: every one said so: and if I hadn't trusted---- But what's the use of going all over that again? It's done now, I'm ruined absolutely--penniless, and we must face it, you and I. I wish that I could face it out alone (and, of course, I shall eventually pay twenty shillings in the pound); but it wouldn't be the game, would it, for us to spend money till we're straight again? So, as I say, you must leave Sherborough, old man. I'm sorry; you know that; and I'm almost glad that your dear mother didn't live to suffer this blow; but there it is, and we must face it out.

"I wrote off at once to your Head and he has wired back, `Please do nothing final till you have seen me. Suggestion to make.' I'm afraid nothing can be changed, but although you'll be wanting to say good-bye to all your pals, poor old man, I think perhaps you'd be wiser to say nothing to any one till we've heard Giffard's suggestion? I'll come down to-morrow to see him; we can travel home together; and if----"

If! What was the use of ifs? . . .

And why was he reading it at all? He knew the beastly thing by heart! He only wished that he could possibly forget it.

Wearily he put the letter down and, seeing nothing, stared out fixedly across the field where little groups still stood about, discussing the great race and idly waiting for the lock-up bell.

Leaving. Leaving to-morrow! Not to be captain of the footer, not to row for Sherborough again; and all at a day's notice. Never to see Alan and all his pals again, not even to say good-bye to them, but just--to leave!

It is only human to value things most when one has got to be without them, and it was not till now that Dick realized how happy he had been at Sherborough; how strongly the old place, with its storm-beaten walls and great traditions, had twined itself around his heart. Bad enough, he saw now, to have to leave at all; but that last year would have been so glorious, for all its pain--and now he was to leave without it! Why had he not been happier? He had taken everything as it came--success, friendship, popularity--never reflecting that many lacked them all, and never feeling that he need be grateful. Well, now he had his punishment! . . .

Deep in his self-accusing reverie, he gave a start as loud knocks upon the study door announced a visitor. Hurriedly he put the letter back into his pocket, and turned about almost with an air of guilt, to meet the puzzled face of his great friend.

Frankly, Alan was puzzled; he could not make it out at all. Why was Dick, generally so full of fun, moping about like this? He had not missed the rustle of paper as he entered, and was almost sure that Dick had put away a letter. Silly old fool not to tell him if anything was up!

"Hullo, Dick," he said, as he came in; "what's up? Every one's wanting to congratulate you, and--I say, I hope that spurt wasn't too much for you?"

"No, rather not, you old ass!" said Dick, trying to be cheerful. "You always say I'm such a modest blossom; well, perhaps that's why I'd rather sit in here?"

But Alan was not in any way deceived. He looked fixedly at Dick.

"I say, none of your people are bad, are they?" he asked, in a new tone that somehow put a world of sympathy into the simple words.

"No thanks, old man," Dick answered; "everything's all right."

Alan, like the so observant parent, did not in the least believe, but, like her, was forced to dissemble.

"Well, come and change," he said, looking at his watch. "Twenty minutes still before lock-up, so if we buck up shifting, we can have a last stroll round."

"Right you are," said Dick. His friend, watching intently, noted the way in which, as he got up, he looked out at the broad field, at the trees golden in the sunset, at everything he was so soon to lose; and though Alan could not understand, it hurt him.

"Right you are," repeated Dick, and he moved wearily towards the door; then added in a lifeless tone, "Let's come and have a last stroll round."

Some ancient sage, in the world's youth, when it was still possible to say true things and yet be thought original, probably remarked that weak Man can survive almost any curse which Fate may offer, except continual prosperity.

Everything from the start had gone well with Dick Hunter. The loss of his mother, which might seem a deafening blow to any child, was mitigated by the tireless love of a devoted father. Colonel Hunter, staggering under the blow of his wife's death and hardly able yet to understand that what had seemed a real part of himself, of his life, was now his only as a tender memory, had turned the whole flood of a reserved but passionate affection on to his young son. People called their friendship beautiful as they looked back at the two figures, so different in height and years: the grey-haired soldier with his ready smile, and the boy whose warm hand slipped instinctively into his father's.

Years went on and Colonel Hunter with unwilling logic decided that his son had reached the age when he must go to school. Half amused but half ashamed, he realized that he had almost grown into a mother; he had the woman's wish to keep the boy always beside him! Perhaps, unconsciously, when he had sacrificed himself for his son's good, he had been really paying a last tribute to his wife? At any rate the wrench was hardly less agonizing than that earlier parting. He missed Dick so terribly at every moment of the day, and now for the first time since his wife's death knew himself a lonely old man, and alone. He sat at night in the big house that seemed so silent, puffing at his pipe; longed for the holidays; read and re-read the so brief letters; and consoled himself with pictures of his boy growing strong and manly in the good, hard mill of Sherborough.

That was his one wish and ambition: that his boy--their boy--should grow into a strong, manly man. Everything in these years had been directed to that end. It was a Spartan, if a loving education; and many a time had the sentimentalist which pops up inside every man as years draw on been rigidly thrust down because it did not fit in with the hardening process. He wished his son to treat him as a friend, because equality lives longer than subjection. Even now, he would not visit him at Sherborough, much as he longed to go, because he felt that Dick must learn, so soon, to stand alone!

Dick, of course, at Sherborough was far less lonely.

Good-looking, strong for his years, lovingly trained to the art of bat and ball, accustomed from childhood to express even the tenderest emotion with reserve, he plunged into public school life as to the manner born. Happy from the first day and popular almost as soon, he was a splendid tribute to his father's training. "Sherborough's a jolly fine school," he wrote in his second letter with a sublimely expert air, and that grateful place was no less quick to vote him "quite a decent kid."

This view persevered, except that the last word soon grew inadequate for one whose legs shot out and muscles hardened at so wild a pace. Hunter tried every form of sport, and very seldom failed in any. Honour and modesty had been the chief qualities instilled by the old Colonel's systematic training. Hunter never failed a friend, and even when the laurels clustered thick about his brow, showed not the least sign of thinking himself in any way superior. As a result, the rank and file loved him almost as warmly as his nearest friends. He was among those lucky folk who spend their days enshrouded, as it were, in a warm, genial aura of good will. At home, his father lived to help him; at school, there were a hundred who would rush to serve him.

Dick, modesty itself in estimating his achievements, yet revelled in the popularity that they secured.

To be always wanted; never to be able to do wrong; to have power, yet not use it because one can rule by affection; to have no enemies and countless friends; to hit the bull's-eye of success at almost every fresh attempt--here is, indeed, good fortune enviable beyond the lot of any king. Dick, none the less, could scarcely be expected to value it properly. That was a task more easy for the outcasts, the useless smugs who could do nothing for their House or School. They might call Hunter a lucky devil and sigh for even one of his gay-coloured caps or one of his good friends, but Dick, used from his youth to love, accustomed to efficiency, could take it all for granted and be happy without feeling grateful.

Now indeed--so vast the dangers of prosperity--now, at the first adverse puff of Fate, he found himself resentful. Why had he ever had all this if he were bound to lose it? Ever so much easier always to have gone without it! . . . So did he argue, with all the childish fallacies of one long spoilt by Fortune, and gradually, as he compared the new with the old and sought wildly for some scapegoat other than his too ungrateful self, his thoughts turned easily towards his father.

It was no fault, Dick saw suddenly, of his own. Perhaps he ought to have enjoyed himself much more; perhaps he had not been grateful enough. But what of that? Things would have gone on as they were, with him quite happy, but for that beastly letter from his home. His pater had been gambling--that was it! --investing in things that weren't safe; and so . . . he must leave Sherborough, leave Alan, leave the river, leave everything he loved! It wasn't fair or just. His father might have thought of him. It was all very fine to say that you were sorry and you wished that you could face it out alone, and all that sort of stuff, but that was just it--you jolly well could not; he--Dick-- had to face the worst of it and leave the dear old School. . . . !

So he stood upon the station platform with a hard, sulky look around his mouth, not at all the same Dick who usually welcomed his devoted father with a smile which proved the love not to be all upon one side.

It seemed, too, a different person who climbed wearily down from a third smoker and walked towards his son. Dick had never thought much about his father's age. They had been such good pals; ridden, fished, shot, done everything together; the question of years did not enter into their friendship. How should any son guess at the pathos of a father who deliberately clung to youth in word and action, so that he might not seem a dull old fossil to the son he loved? He did everything, and therefore he was young!

But now, now when the depressed figure of a broken man came wearily towards him, a man whose very moustache, once so fiercely martial, seemed to droop in grey dejection--now Dick suddenly realized that this was an old man.

Perhaps at other moments that discovery would have induced new tenderness and greater love; at this, it merely widened the chasm that opened out between them.

Colonel Hunter on his side, penitent and worried, hoping to find one who would console him in a crisis especially painful to a man with whom honour ranked as a religion, noted that vague difference in his boy's look, and knew himself face to face, instead, with an accuser.

"I'm so sorry, old man," he said, as he shook hands, for that was his one thought--of penitent regret that his boy, too, must suffer.

"It couldn't be helped," Dick answered in forced tones; "you didn't see what it would mean, did you? or you wouldn't have done it." His thought was all for his own suffering; he had none for his father's shame.

Colonel Hunter looked straight at his son. This cold, grudging absolution was so different from what he had expected--hoped. He looked straight at him, and in that moment knew the nature of that change which he had noticed: his son had grown from boy to man. Cold logic had usurped the place of an unreasoning love.

"It seemed so safe," he answered humbly. "I meant it for the best. I wanted to make more for you." His military soul found some odd comfort in abasement. The fault was his, and he must pay the penalty.

Dick made no answer, and they walked silently towards the School. All the old comradeship was gone, and each accused the other of the fact. To the son, it was a matter of finance; their ruin had spoilt everything, and that was not his fault; but the father laboured underneath a blow far more severe. He had believed Dick's love, the love he had so fought to keep, would rise superior to any test. His son would surely stand by him in anything. He knew that he had erred, but he had tried to make amends. He had offered apologies--and his apologies were not accepted. Dick, who had borne success so well, could not endure adversity. . . . It was a blow more bitter than any loss of pounds and pence; it was the shattering of a long-worshipped idol.

Later he might and would create another--for was he not Dick's father and did he not love him?--but it could never be an idol of the same perfection.

He had looked for too much, judging a boy's weakness by his own full-grown strength. Into this ideal image of his son he had read all the virtues; honour, courage, manliness, everything that he admired. He had felt so sure that Dick would rise superior to any test; and now----!

Presently he would adjust his view; look for much less, and even be delighted if he got a little more--for was he not Dick's father, and did he not love him all the same, however weak?--but just now it hurt terribly, hurt far more than all his other troubles.

"I think I'll go and call on Giffard at once," he said dully, as they reached the school gate, "and see what his suggestion is."

"All right," came the wooden answer, like the words of one speaking from behind a mask. "I'll wait in the drive. But I don't see anything's much use."

Without any more farewell the old man turned from him, and as he turned his eyes filled with tears. It was not for the pain: life had stiffened him beyond tears for that; but he had seen his hopes killed, and was disappointed.

"You must have wondered, Colonel Hunter," said the Head Master, leaning back in his chair and obviously coming to the real business of the morning, "why I telegraphed asking you if you could not manage to come here and see me before deciding definitely about your son's future."

"Not at all, Mr. Giffard, not at all," said Colonel Hunter in a polite, appeasing way. The remark meant nothing, but seemed an obvious and easy one to make. He had been dreading this interview as only a sensitive, reserved man can dread things that go deep into life; nor had its opening passages, the courteous trifles of strangers meeting for the first time, reassured him. It was distinctly a relief to get near the "suggestion" at which the telegram had hinted.

Mr. Giffard ignored his remark, and proceeded to explain.

"The fact is, this--er, unfortunate occurrence in your private affairs happens to come exactly at the same moment as a not unimportant change in the domestic economy of Sherborough, and by this chance I am enabled to make you a proposal that you can, of course, accept or refuse, but will not, I hope, in any case, resent."

The Colonel waved his hand and made a gesture something like an abbreviated bow. As an Army man, he valued action above speech, and he was eager for the fray. There had been no lack of preliminaries and long words.

"You have no doubt heard that your son yesterday won the Gordon Sculls, defeating a boy from Mr. Weston's House called Bruce?"

"Yes, yes," the other could not help interjecting. This was quite endless! Besides, Dick was waiting out in the school drive for him.

Mr. Giffard smiled at his impatience. "Mr. Weston," he said slowly, as though resolved to reach the point by his own road, "is moving next term into a bigger House, and naturally taking his boys with him. His present building, which holds thirty boys, will be taken over by a Mr. Wilson, who, in turn, has a still smaller House--a House, to be exact, of sixteen boys."

He paused, but his visitor could not, at the moment, light on any very appropriate remark. Frankly, the size of Mr. Wilson's House was a matter that left him altogether cold.

Presently the Head Master began again.

"Mr. Wilson's House, you must understand," he said--and Colonel Hunter nearly groaned aloud--"is not--er, a bad House." Here he moved a paper-knife upon his desk, and smiled. "All Sherborough Houses, ex hypothesi, are good! Still, I am bound to admit that, whether owing to its smallness, as I suspect, or for other reasons, Mr. Wilson's House has not, so far, made its mark upon our life in either work or play. Nor, as a matter of fact, has it produced any one boy who is capable of leading, or of setting the tone essential to a big House, as Wilson's now will be."

Here he stopped and rested the finger-tips of one hand on those of the other, looking at his visitor as though, now that he had explained so much, he would be glad of his decision; if adverse, they need go no further. But Colonel Hunter, used to military directness, had not yet found his bearings, so to speak, and simply murmured "Yes?" in a manner more or less encouraging. He wanted that suggestion in plain language. He did not want a speech.

"Now," said the master, with the air of a counsel who seeks to rivet the mind of a dull jury, "that same thing, as you will have guessed, struck Mr. Wilson, and only the day before I received your letter he had consulted me--in confidence, you understand--as to whether I could anyhow arrange that some trustworthy boy should be transferred to his House, to act as Head Boy, and so tide over this awkward period in a House's growth. The thing, I confess, seemed difficult, though Mr. Wilson, thinking it might act as an inducement, added that he would take such a boy, if he approved of my choice, without any sort of charge. Now in your son's case--you understand, of course, Colonel Hunter, that I merely throw it out as a suggestion--but in your son's case, his scholarship covers the School fees, so that you would be able to give him his last year at no expense beyond the bills for stationery, et cætera, or at a far less cost than you could possibly maintain him elsewhere; and it seemed to me that--possibly--under the circumstances----" And his voice died away.

"I see," the Colonel said, as though speaking to himself, and then sat silent. There seemed to him no need for words. There was the proposal (at last!), and he must consider it. He would say something, when he had anything to say.

Now, of this odd couple, it was the master's turn not quite to understand. Thinking his visitor's silence to imply that he was hurt by the idea, his diffidence, constantly growing through the interview, urged him to embark again.

"You must understand," he said, "that there would be no conceivable suspicion of charity or favour about this arrangement. Mr. Wilson would secure your son's help and influence--a very valuable property, if I may say so! I, of course, shall miss him greatly from my House, but that, you say, must in any case be so, and it will be something to have him in the School; we want him for our crew and for the football. Of course," he felt impelled to add, "I do not pretend to say that your son's last year will be quite as pleasant as it might have been if he could have stayed in the School House. Here he has been an idol, popular and with innumerable friends, whilst there his task, I freely own, is almost certain to be difficult; he may easily have to fight against prejudice and face a certain transient unpopularity, always difficult for a boy who--I sometimes suspect--is almost weakly dependent on the opinion of his fellows; but at least he will finish his education, and I do not think that a little responsibility has ever harmed anybody's character."

Then, at last, this surprising Colonel spoke. The one objection seemed to have decided him!

"Thank you, Mr. Giffard. I must of course consult my boy; it is a thing for him to choose. My own impulse was to remove him at all costs as I could not pay his way, but what you tell me of the task before him changes matters; it will be a big thing to have done--a splendid opportunity. I will talk the matter over with him and you shall know at once. I shall not hide the difficulties of the job from him, and if I know anything of him at all" (he spoke with a pride almost fanatical), "I think you may take it that they will decide him to accept."

As though half ashamed of this tribute to his son, the old man rose with stiff abruptness, and, holding out his hand, said, "Good-bye, Mr. Giffard. It has been a great pleasure to meet you."

And only pausing to bow old-world acknowledgment to his host's courteous retort, the Army man had gone, leaving the pedagogue with a certain puzzled wonder but also a large feeling of respect.

Outside, Dick was pacing gloomily up and down the path. That look upon his father's face, as he turned away, had somehow lingered with him, and this solitary stroll upon the deserted school site gave him the time to feel a bit ashamed. It was sickening enough, what had occurred, but it was bad for both of them, and there was no need for him to make it worse. . . . He was slowly coming to see the matter almost from the Colonel's point of view, when a firm step upon the gravel made him swing expectantly about.

"Hullo," he cried in very different tones and with quite a note of welcome in his voice. "Why, you weren't very long!" (Giffard is known at Sherborough as Longers; not from his height in feet, but for his length of tongue.)

"Wasn't I?" said Colonel Hunter, so gloomily that Dick was forced to laugh.

They understood each other perfectly, these two. It was a victory for the father's system that in this moment there was no need for any word. They came together naturally again, like two friends of equal age after some passing storm. No awkward explanations or apologies. They had never said much about the things that mattered (were they not both trained in a public school?), but each could guess exactly what the other would have liked to say just now.

Colonel Hunter saw that his son's better self had triumphed, and his heart was full of joy. He linked an arm in Dick's, and Dick knew that he was forgiven.

"Come on down to Waterlow's," Colonel Hunter said. Now Waterlow's is the School's pet shop in the town, and this hour of noon the due time for buns and a glass of milk.

"Don't think I feel hugely like it," answered Dick.

"Oh yes, you do, man! Besides, we've got our journey; come along," and he gave a loving pressure to his companion's arm.

Now it was Dick's turn to understand. He guessed from this insistence and that pressure why his old father was so set upon his bun. Waterlow's was an excuse, an easy way of getting through an interview that might be rather difficult. Longers had made his suggestion, and the pater was burning to discuss it. . . .

Indeed, no sooner were they seated at one of the tables in the little shop, whose emptiness spoke of the holidays, than Colonel Hunter set the matter forth, in just one-tenth the time that had been occupied by Mr. Giffard.

Dick, at the end, adopted the exact policy of his father at that earlier interview. Instead of "I see," he said, "Indeed," but after that he said no more, just gazed in front of him, absently eating a pink-coated cake--and thought.

Wilson's House--Wilson's!--or leaving? There it was, put in a nutshell.

To leave; he had realized what that meant, yes: losing Sherborough, losing Alan, losing everything; but Wilson's----!

Every one knew Wilson's; or, in another sense, nobody at all knew them. The place was a by-word, anathema. Probably, in its ten years of life, no one from any other House had ever entered it. Why should he? It held no Firsts, no Prefects, no crew men, no nothing! Slacksters, dirty slacksters, everybody said, and rotters too; with which they passed by very much upon the other side. No one it is true knew very much about the place; but no one wanted to.

And it was here that he was asked to go instead of the School House. A dreary prospect of endless games with useless footballers, of meals with hopeless rotters at one's table, of uphill struggle against odds, unrolled itself before his eyes, in place of all the jolly times that had been his. . . .

Colonel Hunter, with the tense look of a nervous pilot, sat and watched him raptly, divided only by the narrow table. His system was at stake. Had the boy got good stuff in him, or would he at the first test crumple up, as he had crumpled up just now? He would not guide him; no, the decision must be his; but still----!

The old eyes gazed almost in appeal at the young, worried face; but Dick was blind to everything except his choice. Leaving or--Wilson's! Wilson's!

"You know, pater," he said slowly, "if it's a matter of Wilson's, I really think----"

But of a sudden his father's voice, strangely eager, broke in on his words. He had vowed that he would not guide his son's hand, yet he could not wait! Surely he would not choose the easier, weaker way? No, he was going to say that he would go to Wilson's!

Man-like, the old Colonel found relief even in a conscious self-deception.

"As you know, Dick," he therefore began hurriedly, "I've always left the moral side of things to you, and that has been all right. I'm not beginning to preach now; don't think it; but so far, old boy, you've had a pretty easy time of it, and life's a bit difficult, you know, and here's the first hard thing for you. You've got to decide, which ever way you like, but I believe it will be good for you if you go through with it, instead of going round."

Dick made no answer, knew that none was wanted. He saw now what his father expected of him--what he thought was the strong thing to do.

"A pretty easy time." Yes; hadn't he thought so last night? House colours won in his first year; work no worry to him, as a scholar; every one decent to him at once; a Monitor while still sixteen; Firsts and everybody glad to be his friend; fags seeming keen to work for him, and almost honoured by a thrashing; lots of money; in the school's best House--things had been easy and jolly until now.

That was why Wilson's had seemed so impossible.

And now----?

He realized that his father's eyes were on him, as though awaiting the decision, and there was in them something, an appeal or perhaps a hope, that seemed to make the answer certain beyond the possibility of choice. He had behaved badly, he felt, just now. That look of disappointment on his father's face certainly had lingered with him. . . . "All right," he said simply. "I'll-- I'll go through."

That was all. To them both, even so, the scene appeared one of intense, unique emotion.

The Colonel, too, said nothing for a moment. He dropped his eyes, but not before Dick saw in them a quick glint of triumph: that other failure was redeemed. The system--slightly aided!--had proved a success.

Silently the old man held out the glass dish of cakes.

"Tackle one of these brown beggars now, old man?" was all he said presently; but no father ever said anything with greater tenderness or pride.

If news travels more swiftly at school in term-time than anywhere else in the whole world, surpassing by its speed even the mystic "wireless" of the Indian, exactly the opposite is true of a school during holidays.

Everybody swears on the last day of term that he will write to everybody else, but who wants to do that sort of thing at home? Anyhow, if he did want to do that sort of thing (and he does not), there is that rotten holiday task, which he might do now instead of on the journey back. . . . Besides, nobody will write to him, and every one will understand!

So in the end he waits until the first day of next term; and then, in a moment, the severed threads of friendship are picked up again, and very soon the home, which it was such a wrench to leave, seems something that belongs to quite a separate existence. It is almost a nuisance having to write there!

It was owing to this very definite line drawn by almost all boys between home and school that hardly anybody heard, during the Easter holidays, the news about Dick Hunter. Dick himself wrote to no one except Alan, who was puzzled to receive a short letter in which Dick merely said, "I am shifting to Weary Willie's, next term, to give him a leg-up with his new House; my Pater thinks it a sound thing to do," and showed no signs of regret or anything. And Mr. Wilson--the weary one in question--who was the other person in this secret, though frankly delighted with his good fortune, saw no reason to share it as yet with his House at large. He was no bad judge of character (whence his delight at getting Hunter as Head Boy), and had more than a suspicion that Medwin, hitherto his rather weak right hand, might not be the only member of his House to resent this importation.

Medwin, indeed, gaped in astonishment when the news was broken to him on arrival for the Summer Term.

"You will be glad to hear," began Mr. Wilson in the slow tones that had won him the name Weary Willie, tones wherein it was easy to suspect irony but hard to be quite sure of it, "you will be glad, I am sure, to hear, Medwin, that I have been fortunate enough to induce Hunter of the School House to come here for this first year and so give us the help in athletics, as well as the important position in the School, that we shall need as a big House."

Medwin was not glad at all.

He owed his position in the House to work, and as an Irishman might say, he had not got it. Technically he was Head of the House, but actually Wilson's was a genuine democracy;--every one was equal! Medwin was good at mathematics, curiously good: the story went that the very masters owned they could not teach him anything, and he had got a scholarship at Cambridge; but he was useless as to keeping order. But then nobody in Wilson's did keep order,--except Wilson. If there was a row along the study-passage, as there usually was, the most that Medwin ever dared to say was, "I say, you fellows, look out: we shall bring old Wilson along;" and he was always careful to be in the row himself, as otherwise even this might be considered cheek and be resented. Stone, in fact, who was easily the strongest fellow in the House even though he "couldn't bother about games," did come to resent Medwin's interference, and began shouting back, "Oh, dry up, Meddler!" This raised a laugh but hardly ever stopped the row. So Medwin, who did not know what pride meant, had gone to the House Master and explained that Stone was stronger than himself, and how was he to keep him quiet? Whereat Wilson, despairing of his House and resolving so soon on a change, had promptly made Stone a House Monitor. . . .

That had been two terms ago, and Medwin had been happier since then. Certainly the noise had not decreased; but if a Monitor were making it--why, who was he to interfere?

And now, when things seemed easier, he was to tackle Hunter; Hunter, twice as big as Stone; Hunter, easily the beefiest fellow in the school; Hunter who, he knew, despised the fellows like himself that were no good at games!

No, Medwin was not glad at all.

Logically, the master's next words should have cheered him.

"From various things you have said to me, Medwin, during the last terms, I have gathered that the position of Head Boy with all its responsibilities has not been quite congenial to you? I fancy that you found Stone rather a hard nut to crack!" (Here his eyes twinkled, but Medwin did not smile, for no one likes to be reminded of his weakness.) "I therefore don't think I need waste time in apologies to you, when I say that I have decided it will be easier and better in many ways to have Hunter as Head of our new House, though you will of course remain a Monitor. As to Stone--well, we shall see. . . ."

But somehow, Medwin did not look more pleased at that. His first dread had been dispersed; that heavy load of last year's responsibilities removed; but maybe his logic was deficient, or possibly here was another instance of the old law that man loves most what he has got to lose.

He left the master's study with a sulky look upon his pale, weak face.

Outside, in the darkness of the passage, another fellow was lounging against the wall, waiting his turn to go into Wilson's study. Medwin, always careful to be polite to every one, peered through his glasses so that he might welcome him by name. Then he started back with a nervous murmur of apology, and scuttled down the passage like a frightened rabbit: for the newcomer was Hunter.

Dick had no idea that this was the Head of the House. Medwin, indeed, in looks was much more like a weedy new boy, and nobody at Sherborough ever worried to know Willieites by name. Dick's chief concern was that the study was now empty, and without another thought for the timid ass who had come out, he knocked and entered, rather nervously.

Wilson's mode of welcome quickly put him at his ease. So soon as he saw who it was, the master leapt up from his desk with a most genial smile and held his hand out cordially.

"Welcome to your new House, Hunter," he exclaimed; and as Dick groped for words, "Don't try to say that you are glad to come! But I hope, anyhow, you will not be so very sorry, later. And I am very pleased to have your help."

Twenty years as pedagogue, if they had not melted his reserve, had given him a store of tact. Naturally a man of hardly any words, he had felt that something of this sort must be said now, and painfully rehearsed it; but that once over, he hurriedly switched the dialogue on to the plane of business and so spared Dick infinite embarrassment.

"Now," he said in a different, firmer tone, "we shall have some one knocking in a moment; I must see you later of course; but I want you just to grasp the situation, Hunter. So far as the discipline of the House goes, I shall leave everything to you as my Head Boy. If you want backing up in anything or any changes made, you will come to me. That's simple, isn't it?"

"Very," Dick answered and found himself smiling. It was a policy that suited Wilson's name of "Weary Willie" to a convenient degree.

"Last term," the master went on, "my Monitors were Medwin who is in the sixth form, and Stone who--well, Stone is a big fellow and was rather a handful for poor Medwin to manage. Perhaps not the best of reasons for making him a Monitor, but I'm not sure that it's not rather a common one, none the less! However. . . ."

This last word was seemingly meant to recall the conversation from its excursus on the physical limitations of the Rule of Boys by Boys.

Dick found himself oddly at home, so soon, with Weary Willie. He himself had not said anything as yet, but there appeared to be no awkwardness: though they had never really met at all before, the other was speaking to him with all the confidence of an old friend. And yet they said that Wilson was so silent and reserved!

No boy ever suspects that any master can possibly be nervous. The apparent cruelty of a form, which can spend a really happy afternoon at the expense of some lank youth nervous about losing his job, is due less to brutality than to this curious fact! Dick, relieved of his own qualms, did not think it necessary to consider whether his master had any. He sat in silence, and poor Wilson, feeling speech a duty, forced himself upon another venture.

"Medwin, of course," he went on, "will remain a Monitor, though you will take his old position of Head Boy. Stone," and here he paused expressively; "Stone will have a dormitory for the present. . . . After that--well, you will see, better than I am able. Perhaps now that you are here---- However, we shall see. Medwin will assist you as far as he is able, but he is not strong, poor fellow, and has very little influence, I am afraid. I think it will be a real relief to him not to be Head Boy any longer!"

Medwin, none the less, had entered Caput (the which is Sherburian for the Monitors' big study), with a face expressing anger rather than relief, and banged his hat-box down upon the table. Stone was there, lounging in a canvas deck-chair, talking to a friend, and both of them looked up languidly at this commotion.

"Hullo, Meddler," Stone cried with contemptuous geniality, not getting up.

"You're looking a bit sick, Med!" said the other. "What's up? Decimals refused to recur? Or don't you like the look of our New Home?" This was a far better Caput than that in Wilson's former House.

Stone laughed loudly, for he thought Best a priceless humourist.

Best, indeed, was his great friend and owed his influence in Wilson's solely to that fact. Ugly, brainless, of a weedy figure, he was literally no good at anything, and did not mind. Very precious in his taste for dress, he posed as a man of the world in a way supremely ridiculous to any one who knew, but good enough for Stone, who regarded his friend as a dare-devil cynic and, briefly, no end of a dog. Owing to this delusion Best was frequently in Caput. That pleasant lounge, intended by authority as a home for the Monitors, throws its door open also, by an ancient boy-made law, to holders of School colours; and Best played no game, with that fine impartiality which made him do no sort of work. Stone called him by the obvious name of "Worst," nor did he dislike his title. Indeed, he was still young enough to feel some pride in a bad reputation.

Medwin disliked him and wished he was not so often in Caput, but he was Stone's friend, so how could one say anything? . . .

"No," he answered, ignoring the alleged wit in the query; "but what do you think?"

"I don't," said Best, and Stone guffawed again. "Worst" was in his element to-day! He always seemed more amusing at the start of term.

"Well," stolidly went on Medwin, resolved to get his news out somehow, "Hunter's here this term and going to be Head Boy."

"What?" exclaimed Stone, suddenly serious. A thousand visions, none of them pretty, flashed across his brain.

"Chuck her up!" said Best, whose reputation never allowed him to be serious. "Then the band began."

"But who told you?" Stone asked, too anxious to laugh at his buffoon.

"Wilson." Medwin answered almost in an off-hand way. Things were bad, but anyhow, there was a sort of joy in telling them.

Stone swore gently but not mildly to himself. "Hunter?" he said, presently. "Hunter, of every one on earth! Beastly, conceited ass; always looks at one as though one were mud, just because one isn't in six first elevens and isn't keen about his dirty games. I wonder he cares to come here at all?" (Wilson's at least had no delusions as to the whole school's opinion of them, whatever they might think about themselves.) "Suppose he'll try to ram his School House notions down our throats."

"I wish he hadn't come," wailed Medwin, with his accustomed ineffectiveness.

Nobody took any notice of him. "When's our Reformer turning up?" said Best.

"He came by my train, I think," answered Medwin. "He's in with Willie now."

Stone gave a grunt. "'M! I suppose the swine may be here then, almost any moment?"

It was, in fact, at this very moment that Dick, having finished his interview with the House Master, opened Caput's door. He had been pleasantly surprised by this first talk with Wilson, which in some curious way seemed to introduce him, on the instant, to a friend. Weary Willie, in the gallery of caricatures which, school gossip raises into a tradition, had always appeared as slack, sad, and dirty. The reality, so different from what he had dreaded, lifted Dick out of the depression that had settled on him in the train. Perhaps, after all, things wouldn't be so bad?

But when he came into this big end-study, all his gloom returned.

Caput, in the average House, may be described as the social First Class. Here are the Monitors, picked men, with their selected friends. You may be sure of finding clean sportsmen and good fellows in a Sherborough Caput.

Dick turned the handle and walked in.

He had not thought out what he was going to say, as he entered: words had come easy, always, without that; but when the three fellows in the room all turned expectantly, saw who it was, and looked away again, he felt a sudden fool.

"Hullo!" he said in an awkward way. It was curiously like being a new boy again.

The tall, seedy-looking ass standing by the table, the same who had come out of Wilson's study, blushed and turned his back; the ugly, sneering little devil by the fireplace merely sneered; and the good-looking rotter in the deck-chair echoed, "Hullo," in a cool manner that was rank impertinence.

However, Dick resolved that he must be pleasant. He was here to do a job-- to build the House up--and he must not start by having a feud with the other Monitors.

Besides, . . . Dick Hunter always had been popular, and that, like any other habit, clings. He did not care about the look of these three fellows here; but they would be with him through all this year, and he did not receive with joy the prospect of three terms of feud. Long years of comfortable life had not fitted him for conflict.

Whilst he waited for one of them to speak, he tried to put a name to them from Wilson's comments. The weak Head Boy, he remembered, had been "Medwin," and "Stone" the rowdy fellow who had been made a Monitor because he was too big to manage. Well, then, Medwin was probably the weedy smug, and Stone almost certainly the cheeky devil in the chair. He could not place the sneering ass at all.

Meanwhile the expected answer to his "Hullo," beyond Stone's echo, did not come. Nobody shook hands, nobody took any notice of him.

"I suppose you've heard? I'm coming here this term," he said, schooling his voice with some difficulty.

Medwin blushed yet more red and became very busy at the table. Best, who felt that he had better feel his way a little, kept discreetly silent.

"Oh, yes," said Stone calmly, as though the thing were not of any interest whatever and no one had thought much about it yet.

"I suppose you're the other Monitors?" Dick asked again.

"I'm not," said Best. He was rather sorry that Stone laughed, as he did not want to make an enemy of Hunter till he saw how things were going. He had meant his remark to be ambiguous, possible as either cheek or information, but Stone had made it vilely definite. Hunter looked rather sick, whereat Best, realizing that he really had no right in Caput, suddenly decided not to stay.

"I must throw my things out," he said lamely to Stone, and went away to his own study. Inside Caput, an awkward silence fell. Dick resolved that he must break it. The more he looked at these fellows, the less he liked them: one an obvious rotter, the other no less patently a smug; but they were his fellow-monitors and--well, it would not be very jolly to be at loggerheads. If he must be here in this vile hole, if his father thought it the right thing to do, he might as well be comfortable. . . . A desire to tread softly on the hard way, after all, is only human.

"Who's that?" he asked conversationally, coming up towards the mantelpiece.

Stone, now quite near him, became suddenly engrossed in an old magazine.

Poor Medwin in the end was the one forced to answer. "Best."

"He's not a Monitor, too, is he?"

"No." Medwin wished he had said nothing. Now he was being drawn into a conversation, and he did not want to offend Stone. That, as he knew, was not a pleasant thing to do.

"I was only wondering what right he had in Caput?" Dick said. Everybody knew there were no Firsts in Wilson's.

No one answered him, and this, mere rudeness as it was, made him decide to carry the thing further instantly.

"I think," he said tentatively, with no suggestion of an order, but as a mere proposal to be discussed by equals, "we ought really to keep this new Caput from the start for only Monitors and Firsts, like all the others?"

Stone, accustomed to be lord of Wilson's and exasperated by what he regarded as interference so soon after arrival, suddenly looked up.

"You'll wait a long time for visitors," he said, "if you wait till Wilson's have some Firsts."

The tone of his voice was insolent, studiously, beyond doubt; but Dick, still thinking compromise the best way "through," ignored it carefully.

"Oh, I don't know," he said in quite a friendly manner. "We've got to buck up now and you can do a lot in a short time, with keenness. Besides, fellows are more likely to want to get on, if we keep Caput and things like that as privileges for Firsts only! That's the idea, isn't it?"

A snort was Stone's reply to this, a snort and a contemptuous rustle of his magazine.

Dick felt that, with the best will, he could not keep his temper for another moment.

A year of this! . . .

The thought carried with it a contrasted scene: the School House Caput, with all its jollity, its camaraderie,--and Alan.

Happy notion! He pulled out his watch. Good! It was only a quarter to six.

Sherborough assembles earlier than other Public Schools: "Boys must report themselves to their House Masters before 6 p.m."--so the School rule runs; and thus there were still some fifteen minutes to lock-up.

Dick resolved upon retreat, but he would go with dignity.

"I'm just going round to the School House," he said to no one in particular. And no one in particular replied.

Only, as the door shut, Stone broke out into scornful laughter which he calculated, rightly, would be heard beyond it.

"Great snakes!" he cried to Medwin, still terribly busy doing nothing at the table. "`Buck up!' . . . `Keenness!' . . . `Privileges!' . . . `School House!' . . . Silly ass! Where's that rotter Worst got to, I wonder?"

It was only when he got outside that Dick realized how angry he was and wondered that he had contrived to keep his temper. To be spoken to like this by a couple of smugs that no one ever even knew by sight!

His life, as Colonel Hunter once said, had indeed been easy, and he had never had much need for self-restraint. Those whom he disliked he had ignored; or if they would not have it so, a kick or two had closed the business. Now, with the wish to take that course, and with the strength of body for it too, he knew that he must not. These were the Willieite "big fellows." Here or nowhere were his friends in the New House. . . . And somehow that thought, too, did not console him.

But his irritated nerves were soothed, as he strode once again along the School House study-corridor.

What a different atmosphere, somehow!

One or two juniors, lounging aimlessly about the passage, stared curiously at him as he passed, and he said "Hullo, Brown," or "Hullo, Jones," or "Hullo, Somebody," to each. Then feeling that he was at last at home, he banged upon the Caput door and entered.

Oddly enough it was Alan's voice that he heard first of all, and in a moment all his troubles vanished. Good old Alan! . . . The world was not a bad place, after all.

"There must be some reason," he was saying.

Dick burst in.

"Reason for what, Alan?" he cried, laughing. It was jolly to be back among all these men again!

But whether it was that, as contrast to Wilson's, he had expected more, or whether it was that his nerves were upset, certainly his welcome did not seem as warm as usual. They had always been so glad to see him; he loved to feel that he was being loved; and now----

"Why, here's Hunter!" cried Priestley, Head of the School and House, who always used to call him Dick, and there seemed a kind of awkward chill in the small room, as though its occupants had been disturbed.

Conscious of this and wanting to get into sympathy again with them by making them renew their conversation (no one there, he knew, had any secrets from him), he smacked Alan violently on the back and asked once more, "Reason for what; eh, old buck?"

"Oh, er--I don't know--nothing much, anyhow. . . . When did you come down?"

Dick's spirits fell. He never before remembered Alan refusing to share any secret with him; and it was clear from everybody's manner that they had been talking of something important. Of course he knew that, officially, he was no longer a School House man, but surely this could make no difference in friendship? These, his best pals, would trust him--surely?--with anything, even if he did belong now to a rival House! He had not thought that anything else was even possible, or he would never have accepted Wilson's offer.

Certainly his entrance here had induced an atmosphere almost as uncomfortable as in that other Caput.

It was Priestley, seeming old for his age and always very frank, who made things easier in some ways.

"Is it really true you've gone to Weary Willie's?" he asked, going headlong at their grievance and returning to their interrupted topic.

"Yes," answered Dick ruefully; "worse luck!"

"Well, why did you do it, you old rotter?" said Alan in eager tones, as though impatient for him to vindicate himself by further details. There must be some reason!

Dick failed to notice how his friend hung on the answer, and said in an off- hand way, "Oh, I don't know. The Head was keen and the Pater thought it a good thing to do, and after all it's about time some one took the hole in hand!" He turned it off like this. He did not feel that he could tell them the real truth; that his father was a bankrupt, that he himself was taking Wilson's charity.

"But you'll still play for the School House?" asked Phelps.

The question came with prestige, from the Captain of the Boats, and everybody listened.

"No I shan't, worse luck," said Dick again. "I've got to teach the Willieites to play and get the Bat and Challenge Cup for them!" To be half in fun was the only way to bear the pain it caused him to say this.

"But I say," Phelps burst out, friendship for Dick overpowered by his indignation; "have you thought what it means? We shan't have a dog's chance of the Challenge Oars; our boat'll go down in the Bumps; we haven't got a man who can keep goal for nuts, and--I say, Dick; look here, I know you've got some awfully sound reason for this rotten notion--you always have! I expect the Head's been ramming Duty down your throat or something, but you know, there is the House and our boat's done for if you go. Chuck the whole thing up, man; you can do it if you see the Head at once. Your Pater won't mind and Weary Willie can get some one else."

Nobody had ever heard old Phelps so eloquent before. When he stopped, one could almost tell that every one approved, although there was no sound in the small room.

"I say--I'm awfully sorry," stammered out Dick, to whom this scene was yet more painful than the one in Wilson's. "I--I never thought of it quite like that, somehow, but even if I had----" He paused for a moment, not knowing what to say. "I'm awfully sorry," he began again, "but I can't help it. I can't possibly chuck it, simply can't. I must--go through with it."

"You'll stay at Wilson's?" asked Priestley, almost grimly, as though not able to believe.

"I must," said Dick.

He spoke with an intensity not far from tragic and nobody said any more. They all felt they had done their best.

It was difficult to talk of other things, but somehow it was done. No one was sorry, however, when Dick tactfully said that he must get back for lock-up.

Very sadly, he left the House he loved and went across to the House he despised, knowing that he was unpopular in both.

Inside the end-study there was silence for a little. Its occupants looked at each other, until Dick's footsteps died away.

"Well, I'm blowed!" exclaimed Phelps. "And Dick, of every one!"

"There must be some reason," said Alan with dogged loyalty.

 * * * * * * * *

Dick re-entered his new House even more depressed than when he left it. He had gone for comfort, and found only a fresh bitterness. It seemed as though, in a moment, everybody were against him. Even Alan had been different, and everything was rotten, beastly. . . .

Colonel Hunter, of the Spartan theories, would not perhaps have been so sorry as it might seem that a parent should be, if he had seen Dick's misery. Here was the hard, uphill path, which he had thought might be the best way for this boy, to whom Life's highway had lain always smooth and easy.

Certainly the old man would have been proud and happy could he have been a witness of what happened as Dick put his foot for the second time in Wilson's House.

Stumbling unhappily along the short but ink-black corridor that leads from changing-room to study-passage, he suddenly heard such language as did not meet the ears of random visitors in the School House.

Some one was asking somebody what he thought he was doing, but in words not given by Webster and mostly heard in Billingsgate or Houndsditch.

"I say, stop that swearing," Dick cried out immediately. "Who is it?"

"Me!" came a familiar, contemptuous voice, and as Dick got into the light again, he found himself face to face with Stone, who had a broad smile on his face. His fellow-monitor clearly thought that he had scored.

But Dick saw no need to retreat confounded. This was not how Monitors spoke at the School House or in any other House at Sherborough, and this was not how he meant them to speak in Wilson's.

"Oh, sorry!" he said, for after all the fellow was a Monitor. "But don't you think it's rather rotten to speak like that when every one's about? I don't see how we're going to stop them swearing if we do it ourselves!"

Stone grinned wickedly. "I wasn't stopping anybody swearing! I was stopping somebody making a foul row--young Eyre."

"Yes," said Dick; "but there are other ways of telling men to stop, aren't there?"

"Not that they'll listen to," the other answered. Cheek of this new man to shove his nose into things like this!

"They listen," said Dick, determined not to yield, "if you've enough influence for them to want to. It's only people without it who have to swear at them."

"I dare say so--in the copy-books!" sneered Stone, whose tones made it clear that to use such a sentiment put any man beyond the pale. "Anyhow, I've always managed to keep order my own way and don't want any hints from you, thanks." Beastly prig; preaching at him!

This was defiance, openly, and in its face all Dick's ideas of the need to be pleasant vanished. He forgot, for the moment, all the sequel of discomfort which must follow from a feud with the only Monitor of any power in Wilson's. He was sore with the pain of one whom friends misunderstand, and he was in no mood for insolence from Willieites whom he despised. He did not pause to calculate results. Opposition, so soon, strengthened him; the very reason why the Colonel would have felt rejoiced. To ignore this worm, Stone, any longer would be to encourage him in cheek. Useless to worry further about being friendly. Even for comfort one can pay too big a price!

And while these impulses fluttered his mind, Stone, noting the hesitation and building with complacent faith upon the new Head Boy's hitherto conciliatory mood, decided that here was the moment to be definite. Once and for ail, before this interfering ass got used to the House, he would put him in his proper place. He longed to tell all this to Worst.

"I don't know who you fancy that you are?" he threw out as an after- thought. He'd show him, straight away, that he would not stand any nonsense!

Dick looked him full in the eyes and took a step towards him. Instinctively, Stone moved an inch or two backward. Had he summed this Hunter up all wrong?

"I fancy," said Dick, very slowly, "that I'm the Head of this House and you're only a sort of temporary Monitor, and if you aren't jolly careful, you'll soon find it out."

Whereat he turned on his heel, simmering with inward wrath; walked into Caput; and took possession of the one deck-chair.

With the death of anger was born regret.

So much for his determination not to lose his temper; so much for his wish to keep on good terms with these rotters who must be his intimate companions for three weary terms!

Scarcely an hour gone, out of that long period, and he had thrown the gage defiantly before the only one of them who boasted any sort of power.

It was, he saw, the most preposterous of civil wars. What following could he expect, an interloper who came from another House to teach these Willieites their business? A few days more, and he might possibly have won some friends; even in such a hole there must be surely just a few who wanted things a little better; but for the moment he was a mere alien. He did not even know the names of any one but Best and Medwin, whilst Stone had doubtless got his subjects thoroughly in hand.

Dick made avow to keep his temper henceforth and go warily. That made, he waited rather nervously, though with a certain unexpected pleasure, for the first act of war.

Possibly Stone no less lacked confidence, for nothing happened. His voice was heard along the studies, murmuring no doubt against this interfering prig, and Dick, entering Caput, broke in more than once on dialogue that must be hurriedly, unskilfully curtailed. There was all the rumbling of a storm, the warning calm, but time passed and there came no tempest.

Two days thus went by and Dick, beginning to feel that he had overestimated the peril of Stone's anger, turned to more general affairs.

Weary Willie, true to his name, showed no sign whatsoever of embarrassing himself with that later, longer interview which he had promised his new Head Boy with a superb "of course"; so that Dick, relying on those crumbs of information and some few things seen, now proceeded on his own account to pass the whole situation in review.

Frankly, it was not a ceremony that cheered him up at all. No doubt there are maligned people and places that improve upon acquaintance; in the words of the old song, "you've got to know 'em fust"; but Wilson's House was not included in this number. The more complete Dick's view, the less enchanting did he find it.

Weary Willie's was in very truth, as everybody said, "a rotten House." There were twenty fellows in it, of whom four were new. These four, so far as Dick could see as yet, were his one hope, and there was every risk that they would take their tone from the old sixteen. These four were apart, together; but for the rest, there seemed equality, though not fraternity, in Wilson's. Medwin, weak and nervous, full of apology for even being supposed to have any power, was pleasant to every one, and Stone was impartially unkind to all. He would cannon a second-term boy into a wall with just as unceremonial an air as he would trip up Medwin. In the appalling uproar that was practically unceasing in the study-passage, you would always find Stone; generally Medwin, afraid to be thought stand-offish or a prig; and mixed with the two Monitors, the rank and file--any one, in fact, except the four new boys, still seemingly outcasts even in this curious republic.

Naturally, Medwin and Stone had no authority whatever, nor did the last-named desire it. Who wanted to keep order? He didn't want the study-passage quiet--unless, of course, he had to work! At other times he always made most of the noise himself. And as to power, well, he had always kicked any one who annoyed him and thrashed those who were cheeky, and that was all he wished to do. He had thought less than nothing of having been made a Monitor. And indeed, what is that to one who for three terms has been a tyrant?

The only person whom Stone seemed to leave alone was Best; and this not because Best was strong, for he was weak, wizened and ugly, but because he flattered his friend and patron by taking him for a Man of the World. Best, always immaculate in trouser-crease and splendidly pomaded, talked to Stone (whom he, and he alone, called "Brick"), with absolute contempt of every one except themselves. All the other Willieites were rotters! Who was going to fag to play for a set of swabs like them? . . . And so on, at great length.

The truth was, Best himself, though a vast dog in his own eyes, was utterly contemptible at sport. Put him on the playing-field, and all his grandeur vanished. Having learnt this at his private school, he had acted accordingly in Wilson's and at once expressed a deep contempt for what he knew he could not do. Of course in a larger House he would have been made to play, forced to be keen; but Willie's in those days held only ten boys, and Best's quick tongue had soon won him a place among this set of weaklings. Stone, the one strong person of them all, he won over by diplomacy and quickly brought round to his own ideas on sport. Stone in fact, flattered by being thought so worldly-wise, came in a term or two to see that games were a kid's business, and that a "man" was better occupied in knowing who would win the Oaks or buying picture postcards of a London actress with expansive teeth.

The House that he was in, he felt, was despised by the whole school as useless in games. Well then, how much simpler and more comfortable to get up on a pedestal as Men of the World, and gaze down contemptuously on those others as mere kids silly enough to care for kicking balls about! . . .

Dick Hunter, not of course understanding quite all this, was yet able to put his finger, so soon, on the worst spot in this rotten House.

It was utterly contented to be rotten!

Whilst in the School House, he had always fancied like everybody else that Willie's must be frightfully ashamed of being Willie's, and had really felt something almost like pity for the fellows who were forced to be in it. Now, with a shock, he realized that they were quite content and even proud, despising all the other Houses. Fancy being keen to win cups--mere pot- hunting! Such was their attitude of superior disdain.

They were outside the pale: so much they saw; but if one could believe them, they had no ambition to be found within it. Willie's was a House apart!

This attitude Dick saw to be the greatest obstacle before him, and traced it to its source in Best and Stone. He knew of course that there was no great scope for sporting supremacy in so small a House, which had few senior boys. Stone, Best and Medwin were about the only three above sixteen, for mostly fellows move on into bigger Houses as vacancies occur, but these were very happy where they were. None the less, the fact that one could not excel was no reason for not trying. It was easier to say, "Oh, we don't care for games," because in that way one did not seem to fail (one might have been extremely good, if one had cared to try!); but it was far more sporting to enter the ring, feeble as one was, and do at any rate one's best.

And that, Dick resolved, was what these Willieites had got to do. (Colonel Hunter, when forced to write his favourite motto in an album, always put, after Lowell: "Not failure, but low aim, is crime.")

He had no longer any delusions about the possibility of being pleasant. That little scene with Stone on the first day of term had proved the opposite quite clearly. This would be a fight.

And yet--because he was not used to fighting, because in the recesses of his comfort-loving soul he longed for popularity at any price--he told himself that the blame of conflict should not be altogether on his side. Thus did he find his excuse for further parleying after war had been so decisively declared.

Caput seemed the easiest place; games the obvious topic; a moment when they found themselves with no third party the fit opportunity.

"By the way, Stone," he suddenly began--not that it really was, but because he found the conversation less difficult to start like that--"who are our best men at cricket?"

"No one," answered Stone with easy scorn. "They're all absolutely putrid."

Dick laughed. "Well, some must be better than others, anyhow!" he said.

Stone did not want an argument. "We never play," he said, shortly; "except just small-game. What's the use, when we've got sixteen fellows, and the School House has got fifty-four?"

"Oh, I don't know" (Dick was quite cheery). "Some of the others have got only thirty-two, and we've got twenty now. Besides, if we're going to buck up and grow into a big House, we simply must play, mustn't we? It isn't as though we'd only eight men, and couldn't raise an eleven. We've enough for that and a House Boat as well!"

The last prospect quite failed to appeal to Stone. "We should only make fools of ourselves over both," he sneered. "Besides--we never have."

Dick was getting used to that last argument and irritated by it, too. All his suggested reforms were met with the same obstacle, "We never have"--the final refuge of the hopeless slacker!

Now, already annoyed by the self-complacent superiority of this Man of the World, clearly modelling himself on Best, he resolved by a sudden impulse to deal with that line of reasoning for ever.

"I dare say you `never have,'" he said, wrath once more driving out all thought of the need to be pleasant; "but then you never have done anything! We've twenty fellows, now, and we're going to have forty soon, and we've got to do a good many things you've never done. For one thing we're going to be a proper House, now. And everybody knows what you've been!"

Rash, but effectual.

The world-weary scoffer, lounging in his easy-chair, with socks displayed, suddenly became an angry schoolboy standing with flushed cheeks by the study- door.

"Oh, of course you're very grand," he flung out in the approved manner of the lower third; "but if you imagine we're such a set of mugs as to sit still while you run our House down, you're jolly well mistaken." And flinging his book down, he slammed his way out into the long passage.

"Compromise" had somehow failed!

Dick, for the moment, did not greatly mind. About these games, at least, he was firm and thoroughly in earnest. He would make Wilson's as good at them as might prove possible: what reason could there be against it? Stone's slackness had aroused his scorn and anger as a sportsman, so that for a minute after his departure he merely felt glad that he had spoken straight to him. Beastly slacker, not wanting to do anything! . . .

But then he realized that battle with Stone upon this issue would mean battle with him upon all.

With a feeling of resentment against a Fate which had placed him in this difficult position, he came to see that Stone was now his enemy. He must expect a trial of strength, on the first opportunity.

That last, as usual, did not delay in coming.

This dialogue took place on Thursday, and determining to act at once on what he had then said, Dick pinned up two half-sheets, that evening, on the House notice-board.

The first ran thus--

This created something of a sensation in the House, for cricket hitherto, with the Willieites, had been like going for a walk or buying ginger-beer; a thing one did suddenly, because one wanted to. It had never been organized like this, the day before, as a sort of set task or duty!

But nobody thought much about it, for Hunter's second notice was so far more extraordinary--

Now the meaning of this, to a Sherburian, was obvious enough. Everybody knew that Banners (from the Latin balnea) was a long cemented bath sunk in the cricket field's far corner; that one passed it by swimming four full lengths; and that only those who had so passed might row upon the river. But to a Willieite, who never wished to row, these were mere abstract bits of knowledge and Hunter's notice an astounding business.

Best was very humorous about it. He joined "House" to "Boat" with an inked hyphen, while somebody kept cave down the passage, and he changed "R" to "Pot," also with a hyphen. Then to an admiring crowd he explained that the Pot-Hunter, having resolved to win some cups for Willie's, was going to have four men rowing but sixteen swimming, who could pull the boat along. He said it would be heavy, as Hunter couldn't get a four, so had had to be contented with a House-Boat. . . .

He thoroughly amused his audience for a while, but presently, as was a way of his, he seemed less funny, and when Hunter gave no sign of coming to see his transformed notice, the gathering melted slowly off to other occupations.

Stone, however, heartily supported Best in his mockery of Hunter's notice and quite agreed that it was a pity, while he had the pen and ink, he hadn't thought of putting the initial R after Hunter, so that it looked like Hunter, Rex; as one might say George, R. He even spoke of still doing it; but Best was beginning to feel a little nervous about having tampered with an official notice even so much, and therefore put him off by saying that Hunter was less like a King than like a Nurse. Who had ever heard of a Head Boy worrying about whether kids could swim? He supposed soon Nurse would be cutting their toe- nails for them! . . . with much more humour of the same chaste description.

All this won applause from Stone, who got more serious, however, as the evening wore on. In fact before the bell rang finally for prayers and bed, he had waxed very martial, declared that they would be miserable creatures if they lay down under this sort of thing, and vowed that he'd see about it in the morning, after second hour.

Unhappily, he left out of his reckoning the fact that this same time, of half-past twelve, had been fixed by Sherborough's authorities as the season appointed for School punishments, nor did he recall that he had already managed to get up just one minute too late for Chapel, even without socks and waistcoat. Thus he did not reach Wilson's until five minutes after one, by which time Hunter had successfully interviewed all except one of those who had not swum their lengths. And this last one was already in Hunter's private study, beyond any chance of interference from Stone, who took a poor substitute in revenge by tearing up the notice which had done its work.

Quite unconscious of having roused this great man's anger, Dick was blissfully carrying out what seemed to him a good idea.

Of course the first thing, as nobody was yet an oar, must be to find out which of them was any good at cricket--whence the nets--and then, from those useless on land, to choose four who could be coached to row, after their fashion. But if Wilson's first attempt at a boat must be selected in this off- hand way, it was necessary that all the candidates should have passed Banners and so be eligible for the river. Ergo--everybody must pass Banners.

"Well, look here then, Eyre," he was saying to the last fellow of those who had obediently come to see him (owing to the unavoidable absence of Stone), "you'll turn up at the 1.15 Bath at Banners, like all the rest, in a few minutes now, and then we'll see what every one can do."

But Eyre, unlike all the rest, did not seem willing.

"May I try in a day or two?" he asked.

Dick looked up at him, prepared to be scornful; he did not mean to have any shirking among the juniors; but something in the boy's manner stopped the words upon his lips, and he glanced curiously at him.

Somehow, this Eyre did not look quite like a slacker. He was only in his second year but he was straight and clean and healthy-looking. Dick had already summed him up as a White Man in the making,--a Sherburian, not a Willieite; and thus this plea surprised him. Eyre under his searching gaze got pitifully red.

"Why, what's up?" Dick asked, not without sympathy. "Feeling a bit rotten to-day?" He did not want to bully the poor little beggar.

"No-o," answered the other, almost as though he wished that he could fall back on that so convenient excuse; and his truthfulness in the face of this obvious temptation further commended him to Dick.

"Well, what is it then? Out with it!"

But Eyre had nothing to bring out, and as he only shuffled his feet awkwardly, Dick said, "If it's only you're afraid you can't do it, don't you worry about that! There's lots of time and you say you can do three or four lengths, and plenty of the fellows can't do that. So just you turn up: 1.15. It'll be practice, anyhow."

And now the junior was about to speak, and now he would not; and now he made as if to go, and now he stopped. Dick, noting all this, was more and more puzzled.

"Look here, Eyre," he said kindly, remembering how nervous he had been as a small kid; "if there's any reason why you'd rather not come, spit it out! I shan't murder you, you know."

Eyre smiled dimly, but said nothing.

"Well, is there?"

"No-o," again, still more unwillingly.

"All right, then; come along at 1.15; and don't be a young ass. Clear out!"

But he spoke the words quite gently. He was puzzled about this respectable- looking youngster with the keen eyes and the clear-cut face, who yet wanted to steer free of Banners.

Well, he didn't have to understand kids--thank goodness! . . . So he pulled out his watch, and yawned.

Why, it was ten past one already! That little ass had kept him so long that he'd only just get out to Banners at the time appointed. Even a great man like Hunter dare not be late. Boys are allowed to bathe only at set hours: thirty minutes for each batch to strip, swim, and dress once again; whilst no one is allowed in who is not there when the due quarter strikes. These rules are enforced by an ex-soldier custodian with all the clock-work rigour of his service.

So Dick hurried down the corridor.

As he passed the half-open door of study number five, he heard a voice which he recognized, raised loudly. It was Stone's.

"Well," it said, "all I can say is you're a beastly little greazer, but jolly well remember you'll catch it hot if you turn up again, this afternoon."

So much Dick heard as he passed by, for the passage was empty and the words spoken loudly.

Well, it was a pleasant novelty that Stone should rebuke any one in language so comparatively restrained and almost monitorial; but Dick could not help wondering who was being hauled, where he was not to go again, and what possible breach of House discipline could brand a fellow as a beastly

Stone and Best enjoyed the scene at Banners vastly.

So, indeed, did a good many from the other Houses. There is not much happening between second hour and lunch, so that the distraction was quite welcome. Besides it was a novelty, this sort of informal House swimming test, and when Dick, all enthusiasm, began to sling one of the beginners to the fishing-rod affair and taught him how to kick his legs well out, every one was splendidly amused. Best got a chance of parading his Nurse joke before a larger audience, and many of the School House fellows, who overheard it and were feeling sore about Hunter's desertion, thought it very good indeed. They never knew till then that Willieites had any humour!

Dick, who had the enviable gift of being interested in almost anything that he was doing, really scarcely noticed the amusement that his idea was causing and for the moment was entirely happy.

"Funny old ass," said Phelps indulgently to Alan Scott; "just as keen on that as on winning a School match!"

"Yes, and those swines of Willieites are only ragging him," Alan replied with indignation.

Phelps, still bitter, laughed scornfully. "That's what he left us for!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, come along," cried Alan, pulling his friend's arm. "Poor old Dick won't want the whole School watching." It hurt him to hear Phelps' remark, just as it angered him to see Stone and Best sniggering at the fellow, a thousand times their better, who wanted to help their filthy House; but what could he do? Sadly he walked away. He wished that he could understand this latest move of Dick's. . . .

"Now then, next!" cried this last, quite excited.

Only twenty minutes to test eleven fellows!

How many had he done? Those who had not tried their lengths were waiting, swathed with towels, in the dressing-sheds, whilst those who had been tested were allowed to swim in freedom. Dick looked round and his eye lit first on Eyre, of those remaining.

"Oh, come on, Eyre," he cried. "You try, now!"

Once again he noticed this boy hesitate a moment before he threw his towel aside and hurried to the deeper end, prepared to dive. Perhaps he would have thought no more about it, had he not heard murmurs of "By Jove!" "I say," "Look at that!" and so on, as Eyre ran Tong, with laughter from a few Wilsonians.

Then he looked and saw what was causing such astonishment. Above and below the short triangular drawers that are the regulation kit for Sherborough's baths great thick red weals, always three together and with white flesh between, stood out in high relief upon Eyre's back and thighs.

"Shows the sort of hole that Willie's is!" said some one close upon his right, and Dick felt a personal shame surge over him. He was responsible for this, in a way; should have prevented it; and he did not even know whose work it was--never would have known of it at all, if Eyre had had his way. . . . A fine Head of the House!

For the moment he said nothing. All his pleasure and excitement gone, suddenly discouraged, he watched Eyre struggle gamely through the set four lengths. Even through the water one could see those great malicious weals.

"Well done, Eyre," was all he said, as the dripping figure ran past and every one peered with a morbid interest at his red back.

But later, when the test was over and all the onlookers had scattered, to talk of Hunter's rum idea and also to criticize this sidelight on the sort of thing that happened inside Wilson's beastly hole, Dick went up to Eyre's dressing-box, without attracting notice, and said, "I say, come to my study before lunch."

"All right," answered Eyre obediently; but he said it in tones of doom, like a criminal detected, and looked up with the eyes of a terrified young deer.

And when timidly he knocked at number eight and entered, anybody would have thought that, so far from being wronged, he had committed wrong.

"Look here," said Dick firmly, "I want to know who did that?" He pointed vaguely at Eyre's body.

Clearly this had been expected. "I'd rather not say, much," came readily.

"I dare say," answered Dick; "but I've just got to know, you see!"

Silence. Eyre looked miserable, and Dick, feeling a bit of a brute, decided more than ever that he had the right stuff in him.

"Well?"

"I can't say, really." This with an appealing look, as though the other must surely understand.

Luckily Dick, by putting two and two together, had reached a rather final sort of answer.

"You're in Stone's dormitory?" he asked.

"Yes," said Eyre, and his guilty confusion was a full reply to the first question.

"What was it for?" went on the cross-examiner, taking all the rest for granted.

"Cheek," came the prompt answer, without shame.

"'M!" said Dick. . . . "All right. You can go."

Eyre went--as far as the door, and then he stopped.

"I say," he began, with awful nervousness, "do you mind--you won't--you won't say I told?"

Dick smiled. "You didn't! That's all right. Clear out."

And this time he gave the order in yet more friendly tones. Decidedly there was the right stuff in Eyre. . . .

Then he went across to number nine, full of anger, not weighing issues or balancing results. He must have this thing out!

Monitors at Sherborough are almost spoiled, since beyond the glory of Caput, shared by all, each has a separate study to himself; and Dick found his man all alone, engrossed as usual in a magazine.

"Oh, Stone," he said as he entered, "I came in about young Eyre."

Stone looked up with splendid coolness. "Well, what about him?" he inquired.

"Well, that licking you gave him. Wasn't it a bit steep?"

The Head Boy spoke easily enough, like friend to friend, but words are not everything and his manner gave a hint of something more than gentle protest. Stone, however, was not frightened. Just like young Eyre to sneak (by gad, he'd give it to him!), but he had no intention of expressing sorrow to this interfering Hunter, or of promising to be a "good boy, sir," in the future. He must make a firm stand at once, show that he was an equal and did not mean to put up with anything of this sort.

"No, I don't think so," he said blandly, and turned over a page in his magazine. "He's a cheeky little brute and it does him good."

"What was it for?" asked Dick again.

"Cheek," came the old answer; plus, "Besides, he's a young ass, and a nuisance in the dormitory; always talking of his `dad' and so forth!" Stone was carrying the thing off in his most happy, Clubman vein.

Dick was not impressed. "I sometimes call my pater `dad,'" he said. "What's wrong with it?"

This rather dumfounded the other; it was unexpected. "Not in public," was all that he could say.

"No, I'm a bit older," answered Dick. . . . "But anyhow, even if he is a little ass, and cheeky too, that's no reason why you should half murder him like that."

Stone laughed contemptuously. "Half murder!" he repeated. "That thing doesn't hurt. It only raises marks."

"Perhaps you'll let me try?" Dick put in grimly; and, as the offer was not taken, "What is the `thing,' besides?"

"What's that got to do with you?" Stone blazed out in sudden mutiny. He only just realized that he was standing cross-examination.

"What is the thing? And where?" said Dick. "I want to see it."

There was on odd firmness in his voice, and Stone, realizing so soon that he would have to show the weapon, took refuge in bravado.

"If it amuses you to see it," he sneered, "I keep it down here in the daytime." At which he dived beneath his desk and from the playbox under it drew out the "thing" in question. This was a thick strap--taken, to be exact, from a third-class compartment on the L.N.W. Railway, as stamped lettering revealed--and cut at its end in three long fingers, after the brutal manner of what Scotch pedagogues know as a tawse.

Dick looked at it in disgust, understanding those raised weals. He could not trust himself to speak for a few moments.

"I'll take it," he said presently, and held out his hand.

Stone laughed scornfully. "I'm blowed if you will! I want it," and he drew his precious implement back from the other's reach.

But not quickly enough. Dick, believing in actions more than words, snatched at it and seized it violently, tearing one of Stone's nails in the process. Its owner let go, with a small cry and an oath. Then, recovering himself, he leapt to his feet and, trembling with rage, prepared for battle with clenched fists.

"Give me that back!" he yelled.

Then he looked at Dick, no less prepared. He knew the size of the goalkeeper's muscles, hard with exercise; knew the state of his own, soft from the lack of it; and could not doubt the issue of a fight.

Then--he sat down!

"All right!" he said, with a laugh, relapsing (not quite successfully) on to the old, safer attitude of manly cold contempt. "It's not worth fighting about, is it? You can keep that one and I'll get another."

Dick, temptingly near him, folded the tawse double with irritating slowness and slipped it into his breast pocket. Then he spoke.

"Look here, Stone," he said; "I just want to tell you, this sort of thing has got to stop."

"Oh, so a Monitor, now, mayn't even spank his dormitory, mayn't he?" came the gibe.

Dick refused to be so drawn. "You know quite well," he said, "that for anything serious you can haul a man in Caput; and for small offences you don't use this sort of thing." (Whereat he touched his coat.) "It's mere bullying of the worst sort and we're not going to have it."

Stone was at least persevering. "Who's we? You and Medwin? Or the Royal Plural?" Pity old Best wasn't here!

"Well, I then, if that's clearer," Dick said warmly, maddened by the other's calmness. "As you ask, I'm not going to have it; do you see? I! I've had about enough of your confounded cheek. You do nothing for the House, and if you think you're going to do this sort of thing, you'll find you're jolly well mistaken; see?"

He stood by the door for a few moments, panting in anger, with a very strong and human wish to thrash him with his own vile weapon; then, as Stone gave no answer more definite than a sulky expression, he looked at him in absolute contempt, and, taking the tawse with him, went across again to his own study.

Lunch on this Friday proved a rather awkward meal, especially at Mr. Wilson's table.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday; these are the "Full Work" afternoons at Sherborough; and this, then, was the first of term. From three o'clock to five --it seemed an interminable prospect, on a summer's day! In winter time Cæsar and Cicero are not, perhaps, so bad; but who could possibly feel any interest in them, or even feign it well enough to steer free of an imposition, on a day when the sun was shining, the birds singing, and everything breathed, "Now is the fit time for cricket"? How slowly the quarters strike, at such a time; and how ironical that distant buzz of the lawn-mower, recalling the cool field, the shadow of the elms, and making many high-born youths envy the free lot of a lad who steers a mower!

Besides, the present was uncomfortable enough, at the high table. There sat in state the House Master, his three Monitors, and Best, nor could one easily imagine a lunch-party more ill at ease. Stone sat in sulky silence, glaring out at Hunter; Best was nervous, placed between two fires and not sure which would prove the warmer; Medwin had very much the same fear, of offending either; and the House Master, talking gallantly on general topics, found himself wondering whether Hunter's importation would turn out a wise step, after all.

Dick alone was genial and at ease. His passage of arms with Stone had somehow cleared the air for him. He felt that things were definite by now. He had Stone against him, that was plain: and so handicapped, he had to make something of this ghastly House. After all, one was a fool to mind the enmity of just a single rotter! The House would surely see that he was only helping it along?

He found himself entering with something like keenness on his task, actually looking forward--though certainly without much hope--to testing his cricketers after third hour. Only by throwing himself into his new job could he forget what Alan and his old friends thought of him. . . .

Thus he was changed into flannels and out upon the field, tightening the net's ropes and so on, long before any of the others had appeared or were even due out by the terms of his notice.

Quarter-past five struck, and they were due.

Half-past five struck, and they had not appeared.

Dick was annoyed. Lock-up started at half-past six and he would get no time at all. Beastly slackers, these Willieites! But every one knew that.

He had just decided to go in and see what he could do about taking a first violent step towards their reformation when a white speck, running furiously, appeared far away by the boys' door to Wilson's. As it got larger and nearer, it proved to be Eyre. Hot and panting, but in fairly good form, he arrived, pounding along with eyes upon the ground. As he approached, he looked up and seemed flabbergasted to find Hunter all alone. Indeed for one moment he almost stopped, and it looked as though he were thinking of retreat.

"Come on," shouted Dick, and added sternly, "you're a quarter of an hour late already, you know."

"I'm sorry," answered Eyre, with the inevitable flush. "But--I was kept."

"All right. Where are all the other men?"

"I thought they were out here," said Eyre.

"Wasn't there anybody changing?" Dick asked, in surprise.

And at Eyre's negative, of course, he understood. Even Willieites could not be so late as this. No, they were not coming. They, too, had been "kept."

Like many older men and nations, he had thought too lightly of his foeman's strength. Now, of a sudden, he realized what Stone had been forbidding to the "beastly greazer"; guessed how Eyre had been kept until now; and was fully sure that he never would have dared to come at all, had he not thought the others were out here already.

"'M!" he said, with grim slowness. "Well, then, we won't worry about them-- yet. Put some pads on, and I'll lob a few balls up at you. . . . That's it. No, bat quite straight--you hit all across that. . . . Play with the middle of your bat!" . . .

Eyre as batsman was hugely keen, but horribly inadequate. The first quality meant that he would be all right in time: the last that the period would not be short. Dick, having bowled him out four times, caught and bowled three, besides l.-b.-w. ad lib., began to weary of the sport.

"Look here," he said suddenly, "you come along and see what you can do at bowling, and I'll have a turn at the wicket." Then feeling he might have discouraged him, and knowing this to be bad captainship, added, "That's excellent; you're getting better every minute. You only need practice."

Eyre blushed. It seemed his favourite retort.

But when he began to bowl the ball instead of endeavouring to hit it, there was really more room for congratulation. Eyre had never played in anything but small-game with a friend or two, for Willie's spurned House games; so that he held the ball wrong, took off awkwardly. and had a dozen little faults. But he had got the pitch and some idea of tactics, too. Dick did not despair. Indeed, when those small faults tended to vanish on being pointed out, he came to suspect that this Eyre, if he might never be a batsman, had quite the makings of a bowler in him.

It cannot be pretended that he rivalled Dick in bowling his man out four times, nor indeed was it to be expected. But if the ball travelled far too much to please a hot School House boy, who had been commandeered for the long field, at any rate there were some nasty leg-breaks, now and then, that Dick decided not to slog; and when--largely owing to a lack of rolling in the pitch--he suddenly found himself defeated and one of his stumps supine, Eyre was in the seventh heaven of delight.

"You're coming on like anything," said Dick, as they walked back to the House together. He was still giving him tips, and it did not occur to him as curious that he should walk back with Eyre. Normally, of course, the juniors would have gone away together, and he returned alone; but as there was only one, it seemed natural that they should stroll back to the House together.

One or two fellows from the School House, however, seeing the great Hunter and the little Eyre, duly blushing at the honour, thought differently and made remarks to one another; saying that this was Dick's idea of something better than themselves, or falling back upon Best's joke of Nurse.

The humourist himself, rather alarmed at having failed to appear for his net but safe in number nine with Stone, was making that joke once again, as he watched the odd couple from the study window.

"Here they are," he sneered; "the Nurse and the one and only Good Little Boy!"

"Beastly little greazer," said Stone viciously, once more.

Every one in Wilson's was quite excited to know what Hunter would do about those fellows who had failed to turn up for their nets.

Especially the seven who had failed!

Hunter, they knew, was about the strongest man in the whole school, so far as muscle went, and as to strength of purpose, his manner till now had not led them to think that he would funk. In fact, putting it broadly, the rank and file of Willie's began to suspect that they were in for an averagely bad time. On one side of them was Stone, who with a rich imagery of phrase threatened to "break" them if they were such "worms" as to obey the Nurse's notices; and on the other side was Hunter, who--well, what would Hunter do? That was the question.

As a matter of fact, he did three things, for the moment.

The first was done during lock-up that night.

He went into the study of each of the defaulters and asked him why he had not been out at the nets that afternoon. All of them found the question difficult, not guessing naturally that Hunter knew its answer, and all of them received a solemn warning that if they "forgot" again, they would be sorry for their lapse of memory.

The next thing was done early the next morning.

Coming up from first hour, the House found exactly the same eight fellows up for nets; the sole variation being the time, "3 o'clock today," the which was doubly underlined in firm ink lines that seemed to threaten trouble if ignored.

The last thing in this matter was also done during the morning of Saturday, after second hour, though not discovered until lunch was over.

In every Sherborough House the Matron's room is quite a popular resort in the odd quarter of an hour that falls between the midday meal and the time when it is necessary to get changed for games. Even in Wilson's former House, though the latter need practically did not exist, it had always formed a sort of halting-place on the way out. Some few have medicine to take; others want to buy stamps; one or two juniors, even, may have confided their money to the Matron, and come to draw a little out; whilst the "big fellows"--ironic term, in Willie's--lounge in aimlessly without excuse, as a due privilege, and indulgently say, "Hullo, Ma," before sitting on her table.

At the moment Stone and Best, with Medwin ex officio, were the only Willieites who could be said to emerge from the rank and file. The others were just rabble, like the unnamed warmen who eddied round the famous chiefs at Ilium--and it may here be added, were further like them in the way that, amid the clash of battle, they seemed sure to be the ones to suffer!

Stone and Best at any rate were there, with half-a-dozen of the small fry, directly after lunch on Saturday.

Best, with one leg on the corner of the table, was wondering how he could escape the penalties threatened by Hunter but yet retain Stone's friendship and respect, when suddenly the last-named broke in on his reverie.

"I say, you know, Worst," he said fiercely for the benefit of juniors present, "I can see from their faces that some of these little microbes mean to oil to Hunter by going to his blessed nets. By gad though, I will flay them if they do!"

"Yes," answered Best, forgetting his rôle in the stress of his own danger; "but Hunter's going to flay them if they don't!"

"Don't you believe it," Stone answered angrily and kicked his friend upon the shin. Silly idiot, spoiling the whole thing like that!

But Best did believe it--and he, remember, was among the seven. That influenced his point of view.

Everything considered, as he sat there, he decided that the sole way out of this dilemma was to persuade the kids to go. After all, if none went, all would be licked, he felt sure; if he alone went, Stone would despise him for ever; but if all the others went, even Brick could not expect him to stand out, alone! And so he worked for that.

"Well, I bet you he would," said he; "and what's more, he's a jolly beefy beggar. You should just see him when he's doing dumb-bells in the dormitory." (At this point young Sell, who had been hesitating, hurriedly went out to change.)

"Don't you believe it," repeated Stone, mainly because he could find nothing else to say, and Best just managed to avoid the second hack.

"Anyhow," said that diplomatist, "the Sergeant says he's got a bigger arm development than most Oxford rowing Blues." (Here Gwatkin, another waverer, faded rapidly away.)

Stone laughed in a superior manner. "Anyone'd say that you were in a funk! I suppose you'll go, of course?"

The last question was satirical; but Best answered it in earnest. By this time all the juniors had hurriedly followed their two leaders, and he felt that he must bring his friend round to reason.

"Well you know, Brick--I'm not sure. After all, I'm pretty certain the rest'll go, and it's not good enough to put myself into that rotter's power, is it? Think what a score it would be for him!"

Stone drew back and looked at him. "Sometimes, Worst, I think you're a silly fool." (Really, his thoughts were stronger, but Miss Barnes had a habit of reporting oaths.) "Do you imagine I should let him lick you, eh?"

"You couldn't help it," Best said, frankly.

"Oh yes, I could; I'm a Monitor, you see, my buck, and he'd never dare lick any one so senior as you anywhere except in Caput, and I'd get hold of that mug Meddler, and where would be his Monitors? Oh, you're all right. And as to the rest, I can't actually hold them down--I stopped young Eyre for half-an- hour yesterday--but I've told them what they'll get. I've done my best and I don't think they'll go." At this he glowed with honest pride, like one who feels that he has done his duty.

Best was instantly encouraged. He had not thought of that. The others probably would funk Stone, whose methods they knew, and risk offending Hunter, who might be lenient. (He wished, now, he had not said all that about his arms!) And if he did cut up nasty--why, there was Stone, a Monitor, to shield him.

The last thing that he desired was to appear at the nets, where he knew well he should make a fool of himself; and so, feeling like one reprieved, he hastened to put himself back into his patron's good graces.

"Silly ass, Hunter," he exclaimed defiantly, without much subtlety or point. "He won't catch me out at his dirty nets! I was only ragging just now, Brick. I'm not going. Not much. You needn't be afraid of that."

Stone rejoiced at this new sanity. "That's it," he said in encouragement, "and by Jove! if those kids go, we will give them a time of it."

"By Jove! we will," Best echoed, glad to find that, as usual, he had played successfully with the slower wits of his big friend.

It was at this precise instant that they discovered Hunter's third action in the matter of those nets.

Edith, the maid, came in with many giggles and exclaimed, "A parcel, Miss Barnes, for Mr. Hunter."

Then, with yet more giggles, she laid upon the table her parcel, which consisted of six long, springy canes bound in the middle with a bit of string.

"Well, I never!" cried Miss Barnes. Discipline was a real novelty in Wilson's.

Best, now feeling thoroughly secure, was quite pleased at this evidence that Hunter meant business with the juniors, and managed to amuse Stone by the things he said about it.

"Ha!" he exclaimed. "Our Nurse grows violent; the naughty little boys have been too naughty." Then he pulled out one of the canes, and flicking it so that it bent up and down a yard, cried fiercely, "Now then, sir, how dare you? I don't know what you've done, sir, but how dare you? Nurse intends to cane you. Where will you have it? On the hand, or how?"

Miss Barnes vainly tried to snatch the cane, which she classified as part of a parcel and her sacred trust, but Best was much too quick for her. He leapt around the table, vowing that she too had been naughty, and that he, as Head of the House and Nurse as well, must talk to her, also, severely.

Stone found all this very comic, and the scene would probably have lasted longer had not Dick chanced to be in need of a clean handkerchief.

As he opened the door, he narrowly escaped being hit in the face by a brandished cane. He seized it firmly and found himself, with it in his hand, confronting Best, whose sudden change of countenance was almost ludicrous.

"I suppose these are for me?" was all Dick said, and he addressed it to the Matron.

"Oh yes, Mr. Hunter. I'm sorry, I'm sure; but----"

Dick cut short her apologies: he understood.

Best stood, looking very foolish, by the table; Stone, with an amused smile, against the mantelpiece.

Dick in a leisurely manner slipped the cane in among its five companions, got his handkerchief, and picking up his parcel, moved towards the door. For one instant Best thought he was going absolutely to ignore him, and felt appropriately small.

Then when he had all but vanished, he put his head into the room again.

"Oh, Best," he said in casual tones, as though nothing had happened, "you're up for a net, you know, and all the other fellows are half changed already." Then he shut the door.

"There, you see, Mr. Best," said Miss Barnes triumphantly, so soon as he was gone.

Neither took any notice of this fatuous remark.

"What do I do now?" asked Best, with a comical look upon his face.

Stone looked at him in scorn. "What were you ever going to do?"

"Yes, I know," Best answered ruefully; "but you heard what he said: the kids are all half changed already."

This roused the head-mutineer to action. "Oh, are they?" he remarked. "We'll soon see about that."

But the first thing that he saw as a matter of fact, on entering the changing-room, was Hunter: so that he merely whistled a verse of "Yip-i-addy," and came out again.

"Coming to the nets, Stone?" Dick cried after him in dulcet tones. More than one, always, can be sarcastic.

Stone ignored the taunt and went back to Best in a fierce mood. Noting this, his ally did not dare to hint any further at the possibility of going to his net. After all, he didn't want to go; hated cricket, was no good at it; and if he had two Monitors out of three upon his side, he would be safe enough in Caput. To hesitate any further, with Stone in this mood, might be to lose his support. So with a very jaunty assumption of cynical bravado, he asked him what they could do with this blank afternoon, and was particularly bitter in his comments upon Hunter.

None the less, he was not inwardly quite happy. It was splendid to have Stone to intervene, but he wished he could feel more definite about the exact period of his intervention. The thing was a bit vague at present, and his irritated friend would not discuss it.

He felt yet less happy when, at six p.m., a notice appeared upon the board--

"Silly idiot!" said Stone in tolerant amusement.

"Yes, but what happens now?" asked Best.

"How do you mean, what happens?"

"Well, do I turn up or what? If I don't, I shall get sacked by Willie, don't you see?"

"Well then you'll have to, won't you?" Stone remarked with languid interest. The intervention, somehow, seemed to be receding.

"And you mean you'll turn up and vote for my acquittal, and get the Meddler to do ditto?" Best suggested hopefully.

Stone thought for a moment. "No," he said firmly: "I'm blowed if I do. I'm not going to encourage his rotten Caputs all about nothing, and I shall tell the Meddler not to either. The whole thing's absolutely rotten."

"But I shall get licked, then," almost wailed the victim, shrilly.

"Drivel, man," Stone answered. "What's become of your nerve suddenly? Besides, don't you see he can't hold a Caput if the Monitors don't turn up? A single Monitor hasn't the power. Don't start funking the ass, Worst," he ended, in a gentler tone. "You and I must keep our end up somehow."

So Best kept silent, but reflected bitterly that Stone's end was quite safe, because he was a Monitor. He did