THE GOLDEN AGE

I

Philip's life during the next ten years resembled All Gaul. It was spent partly at a little house in Cheltenham, whither Uncle Joseph, with all his old austerity and cynicism thawed out of him, had conducted the Beautiful Lady two months after their marriage; partly at Red Gables; and partly at a series of educational establishments, ranging from a private school in the neighborhood of St. Albans, where he was initiated into the mysteries of Latin Prose and cricket, to the great engineering shops of the Britannia Motor Company at Coventry.

Life at Red Gables was a very pleasant business. Philip's duties as secretary were of an elastic nature. Sometimes he wrote out cheques for tradesmen and coaxed Mr. Mablethorpe into signing them. Sometimes he battled with publishers about copyrights and royalties. Sometimes he acknowledged the receipt of the letters—chiefly from seminaries for young ladies—of those who wrote to express their admiration of Mr. Mablethorpe's works.

"I suppose, Philip," said Mr. Mablethorpe one morning, ruefully surveying a highly scented missive in a mauve envelope, forwarded by his publishers, "that my books are read by other people besides schoolgirls; but why in Heaven's name should no one else ever write to me about them? Not that I want any one to write at all,—the penny post is the curse of modern civilization,—but I could do with a touch of variety now and then. I have only once in my life received a letter, as an author, from a man, and that was from a pork-butcher in the north of England, who wrote to point out, most helpfully and sensibly, that I was guilty of a technical error in making my hero purchase both kidneys and bacon at the same shop. I should like to get a lot of letters like that: they are extremely valuable. But what do I get? Letters by the score from schoolgirls—sometimes from a syndicate of schoolgirls—all asking for my autograph and endeavouring to find out, by more or less transparent devices, how old I am and whether I am married or not! You can't choke them off. If you don't answer they write again, enclosing a stamped envelope, which hangs round your neck like a millstone for weeks. If you do, they tell all the other girls, and before you know where you are you find you have tapped Niagara. Let us see what Zenana has found me out now."

He opened the mauve envelope, and read the letter with savage grunts.

"This, Philip," he said, "is from Gwendoline Briggs and Clara Waddell. You will be interested to hear that they sit up reading my innocuous works in the dead of night, after the other girls have gone to sleep. Well, I hope the Head Mistress catches them at it, that's all!... Here you are: what did I tell you?

... We often wonder what you are like. One of us thinks you are about forty, with rather tired grey eyes—

"Impudent minx!

—but the other thinks you are much younger than that; clean-shaven, with a very firm mouth.

"This sort of thing makes me quite sick.... Yes, I thought as much; they want my autograph.

Will you please send two, please, as we are not sisters—only great chums.

"Where do these brats hail from?" Mr. Mablethorpe turned back the page and consulted the heading of the letter.

"Bilchester Abbey School, Bilchester, Hants. That's a new name to me. Throw over that directory, Philip: on the third shelf, to your right. Let me see: Founded, 1897. Governing Body: the Lord Bishop of——quite so: Head Mistress, Miss——yes, yes: Assistant Mistresses—never mind them: Gravel soil; Gymnasium; Altitude, four hundred—Ah, here we are:—Number of Pupils, two hundred and seventy-three! Great Heavens! This must be stopped. Get the typewriter quickly, Philip, and take down something!

Mr. Julius Mablethorpe regrets deeply that he is unable to accede to the request of Mesdames Briggs and Waddell for his autograph. Mr. Mablethorpe had the misfortune some years ago to be deprived of the use of his hands (owing to an explosive fountain-pen), and now finds himself compelled to dictate all his work into a gramophone. Mr. Mablethorpe is seventy-eight years of age, and is still in possession of a fair proportion of his faculties. His eyes used to be grey, as Miss Briggs (or was it Miss Waddell?) surmises; but he now possesses only one, having lost the other while on a visit to a Dorcas Society, together with a portion of his scalp. He has been married four times, and possesses sixty-nine grandchildren, reckoning thirteen to the dozen. For further details see "Who's Who."

"That ought to choke them off," observed Mr. Mablethorpe with childish satisfaction, as he finished dictating this outrageous document. "Now, what about this grubby epistle here? It does not smell so vilely as the first, but I bet it is from another of the tribe."

He began to read:—

Dear Mr. Mablethorpe

All your books are in our House Library—

He broke off.

"I tell you what it is, Philip," he said. "I shall have to write a really shocking novel—something unspeakably awful. Then I shall be banned from girls' schools for ever. My circulation will probably go down by ninety per cent, but it will be well worth it.

My name is Elsie Hope, and I love them all. I have no father or mother, and I have just read a story of yours about a little girl who had no father or mother either. It made me cry.

"Snivelling brat!" commented the unfeeling author.

I have not been here very long, and I do not know many of the girls yet, so your books make splendid company. I thought I would like to tell you. Good-bye.

"Gracious!" said Mr. Mablethorpe incredulously. "She hasn't asked for my autograph! Hello, what's this?"

He turned over the page. The letter continued, in a different handwriting—prim, correct, and formal:—

Elsie has gone to bed. I found her writing this letter, and she showed it to me quite frankly. As the child seemed really eager to write to you, I have undertaken to finish her letter and explain the circumstances. I feel sure you will understand, and pardon the liberty. Do not trouble to reply.

Yours faithfully

Ellen Wardale.

Mr. Mablethorpe laid down the letter.

"Ellen Wardale is a good sort," he said. "As for Elsie Hope, she has not asked me to write to her, so I shall do so. Now, Philip, get out "The Lost Legacy," and we will have a go at Chapter Fourteen. It is going to be a difficult bit. The hero, who is the greatest nincompoop that I have yet created, finds himself suspected by the heroine of having transferred his affections to another lady. (Between ourselves, it would have been a very sensible thing if he had done so, but, of course, he is incapable of such wisdom.) As the story is not half over, we can't afford to get him out of the mess just yet; so this morning I want him to make an even greater ass of himself than before, and so prolong the agony to eighty thousand words. Here goes!"

After this they would work steadily until lunchtime.

II

Philip had other duties to perform. He attended to the wants of Boanerges, and in time reduced that unreliable vehicle to quite a surprising degree of docility.

He became gradually infected with the Romance of our mechanical age. He saw himself, a twentieth-century Galahad, roaming through the land in a hundred-horse-power armoured car, seeking adventure, repelling his country's invaders, carrying despatches under cover of night, and conveying beauteous ladies to places of safety. He spent much of his spare time seated upon the garden wall, watching for the motors that whizzed north and south along the straight white road. (It is regrettable to have to record that many of these disregarded Dumps's notice-board.) He saw poetry in the curve of a radiator, and heard music in the whirring of a clutch.

One day, in an expansive moment, he confided these emotions to Mr. Mablethorpe. That many-sided man did not laugh, as Philip had half-feared he would, but said:—

"Romance brought up the nine-fifteen—eh? I must introduce you to a kindred spirit."

And he led Philip to a shelf filled with a row of books. Some were bound in dark blue, and consisted mainly of short stories; the others, smaller and slimmer, were dark red, and contained poetry.

"There," said Mr. Mablethorpe, "are the works of the man whom I regard as the head of our profession. Wire in!"

Philip spent the next three days learning "MacAndrew's Hymn" by heart.

There were many other books in the library, upon which Philip browsed voraciously. Uncle Joseph's selection of literature had been a little severe, but here was far richer fare. Philip discovered a writer called Robert Louis Stevenson, but though he followed his narratives breathlessly found him lacking in feminine interest. The works of Jules Verne filled him with rapture; for their peculiar blend of high adventure and applied science was exactly suited to his temperament. He had other more isolated favourites—"The Wreck of the Grosvenor"; "Lorna Doone"; "The Prisoner of Zenda"; and "To Have and to Hold," which latter he read straight through twice. But he came back again and again to the shelf containing the red and blue volumes, and the magician who dwelt therein never failed him. There were two fascinating stories called "The Ship that Found Herself," and ".007." After reading these Philip ceased to regard Boanerges as a piece of machinery; he endowed him with a soul and a sense of humour. There was a moving tale of love and work called "William the Conqueror"; there was a palpitating drama of the sea called "Bread upon the Waters"; and there was one story which he read over and over again—it took his thoughts back in some hazy fashion to Peggy Falconer and Hampstead Heath—called "The Brushwood Boy."

Only one book upon this shelf failed to please him. It was a complete novel, and dealt with a love affair that went wrong and never came right. The hero, a cantankerous fellow, became blind, and the unfeminine independent heroine never knew, so went her own way and left him to die. This tragic tale haunted Philip's dreams. It shocked his innate but unconscious belief in the general tendency of things to work together for good. He considered that the author should have compelled these two wrong-headed people to "make allowances for one another," and so come together at the last. He even took the opinion of Mr. Mablethorpe on the subject. Mr. Mablethorpe said:—

"His best book, Philip. But—I read it less than any of the others."

Then he introduced Philip to "Brugglesmith," and the vapours were blown away by gusts of laughter.

III

Philip's orthodox education was not neglected. After a year's attendance as a day-boy at the establishment near St. Albans he was sent to Studley, a great public school in the south of England.

Here many things surprised him.

Having spent most of his life in the company of grown men, he anticipated some difficulty in rubbing along with boys of his own age. Master Philip at this period of his career was surprisingly grownup: in fact he was within a dangerously short distance of becoming a prig. But he went to school in time. In three weeks the latent instincts of boyhood had fully developed, and Philip played Rugby football, indulged in unwholesome and clandestine cookery, rioted noisily when he should have been quiescent, and generally tumbled in and out of scrapes as happily and fortuitously as if he had been born into a vigorous family of ten.

He achieved a respectable position for himself among his fellows, but upon a qualification which would have surprised an older generation. The modern schoolboy is essentially a product of the age he lives in, and the gods he worships are constantly adding to their number. Of what does his Pantheon consist? Foremost, of course, comes the athlete. He is a genuine and permanent deity. His worshippers behold him every day, excelling at football and cricket, lifting incredible weights in the dormitory before going to bed, or running a mile in under five minutes. His qualifications are written on his brow, and up he goes to the pinnacle of Olympus, where he endures from age to age. Second comes the boy whose qualifications are equally good, but have to be accepted to a certain extent upon hearsay—the sportsman. A reputed good shot or straight rider to hounds is admitted to Olympus ex officio, and is greatly in request, in the rÔle of Sir Oracle, during those interminable discussions—corresponding to the symposia in which those of riper years indulge in clubs and mess-rooms—which invariably arise when the rank and file of the House are assembled round a common-room fire, in the interval, say, between tea and preparation.

There are other and lesser lights. The wag, for instance. The scholar, as such, has no seat in the sun. His turn comes later in life, when the athletes are licking stamps and running errands.

But the Iron Age in which we live has been responsible for a further addition to the scholastic aristocracy—the motor expert. A boy who can claim to have driven a Rolls-Royce at fifty miles an hour is accorded a place above the salt by popular acclamation. No one with any claim to social distinction can afford to admit ignorance upon such matters as high-tension magnetos and rotary valves. The humblest fag can tell at a glance whether a passing vehicle is a Wolseley or a Delaunay Belleville. Science masters, for years a despised—or at the best a tolerated—race, now achieve a degree of popularity and respect hitherto only attainable by Old Blues, because they understand induced currents and the mysteries of internal combustion. Most curious portent of all, a boy in the Lower School, who cannot be trusted to work out a sum in simple arithmetic without perpetrating several gross errors, and to whom physics and chemistry, as such, are a sealed book entitled "Stinks," will solve in his head, readily and correctly, such problems as relate to petrol-mileage or the ratio of gear-wheels, and remedy quite readily and skilfully the ticklish troubles that arise from faulty timing-wheels and short circuits.

It was upon these qualifications that Philip originally obtained admission to the parliament which perennially fugged and argued around the fire on winter evenings. It was true that he had never been fined for exceeding the speed limit in Hyde Park, like Ashley major, nor been run into in the Ripley Road, like Master Crump; but his technical knowledge was very complete for a boy of his age; and being an admirable draughtsman, he could elucidate with paper and pencil mysteries which both he and his audience realised could not be explained by the English language.

In time, too, he became a fair athlete. Cricket he hated, but he developed into a sturdy though clumsy forward at football; and his boxing showed promise. His speciality was the strength of his wrist and forearm. On gala nights, when the prefects had been entertaining a guest at tea,—an old boy or a junior master,—Philip, then a lusty fag rising sixteen, was frequently summoned before the quality, to give his celebrated exhibition of poker-bending.

Having discovered that the boys at Studley were much more grown-up than he had expected, Philip was not altogether surprised to find that some of the masters were incredibly young—not to say childish. There was Mr. Brett, his Housemaster. Mr. Brett was a typical product of a great system—run to seed. British public schools are very rightly the glory of those who understand them, but they are the despair of those who do not. Generally speaking, they produce a type of man with no special propensities and consequently no special fads. He has been educated on stereotyped and uncommercial lines. He is not a specialist in any branch of knowledge. His critics say that he is unfitted for any profession; that he cannot write a business letter; that he is frequently incapable of expressing himself in decent English. But—public-school tradition has taught him to run straight and speak the truth. The fagging system has taught him to obey an order promptly. The prefectorial system has taught him to frame an order and see that it is carried out. Games have taught him to play for his side and not for himself. The management of games has instilled into him the first principles of organisation and responsibility. Taking him all round, he is the very man we want to run a half-educated empire.

Possibly these truths had been known to Mr. Brett in his early days. But, as already stated, his principles had run to seed. In the vegetable world,—of which schoolmasters are dangerously prone to become distinguished members,—whenever judicious watering and pruning are lacking, time operates in one of two ways. A plant either withers and wilts, or it shoots up into a monstrous and unsightly growth. In Mr. Brett's intellectual arboretum every shrub had wilted save two—Classics and cricket. These twain, admirable in moderation, had grown up like mustard trees, and now overshadowed the whole of Mr. Brett's mental outlook. In his House he devoted his ripe scholarship and untiring care exclusively to boys who were likely to do well in the Sixth: his mathematicians and scientists were left to look after themselves. French and German he openly described as "a sop to the parental Cerberus." His Modern-Side boys forgave the slight freely—in fact, they preferred it; and their heavily supervised classical brethren envied them their freedom. But cricket was a different matter. Mr. Brett had probably begun by regarding Classics as the greatest intellectual, and cricket as the greatest moral, stimulus in the schoolboy world—a common, and, on the whole, perfectly tenable, attitude of mind. But by the time that Philip came under his charge it is greatly to be feared that he regarded both as nothing more than a means to an end—Classics as an avenue to Scholarships and House advertisement, cricket as an admirable instrument wherewith to lacerate the feelings of other Housemasters.

Cricket was rather overdone at Studley in those days. There were cricket leagues and cricket cups innumerable. Play was organised exactly like work: the control of their pastimes was taken from the hands of the boys themselves and put into the hands of blindly enthusiastic masters. Masters flocked on to the field every afternoon and bowled remorselessly at every net. Healthy young barbarians who did not happen to possess any aptitude for cricket, and whose only enjoyment of the game lay in the long handle and blind swiping, were compelled to spend their allotted ten minutes standing in an attitude which made it impossible for them to slog the ball, listening giddily the while to impassioned harangues upon the subject of playing forward and keeping a straight bat. Cricket, thus highly officialized, soon began to be accepted by the boys as a mere extension of school routine; and being turned from play to work was treated by them as they treated CÆsar and Euclid—that is to say, they did just as much as they were compelled to do and no more. But their enthusiastic preceptors took no account of this. They glowed internally to think how unselfishly they were devoting their spare time to improving the standard of school cricket,—as, indeed, they were,—and cementing the entente cordiale between master and boy,—as most assuredly they were not. It did not occur to them that it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Nine boys out of ten would have been grateful enough for half an hour's coaching a week; but to be compelled to spend every afternoon repressing one's natural instincts, debarred, by that unwritten law which decrees that no boy may address his fellows with any degree of familiarity in the presence of a master, from exchanging the joyous but primitive repartees and impromptus of the young, struck the most docile Studleian as "a bit too thick."

Worse still, these excellent men quarrelled among themselves as to the respective merits of their pupils. Many a humble fag, contentedly supping off sweet biscuits and contraband sardines in the privacy of his study, would have been amazed (and greatly embarrassed) if he had known that his merits as a leg-break bowler were being maintained or denied with the utmost vehemence over Common Room port by two overheated graduates of Oxford University. Housemasters plotted and schemed to have the dates of matches put forward or set back, in order that some star performer of their own, at present in the sick-house or away at a funeral, might be enabled to return in time to take part in the fray. Elderly gentlemen who ought to have known better rose straight from their knees after evening prayers and besought their pupils to make runs for the honour of the House.

Into this strange vortex the unsuspecting Philip found himself whirled. His first term was comparatively normal. He went to Studley in January, and being, as already recorded, a healthy young animal, soon found his place among his fellows. Of Mr. Brett he could make little or nothing. He was by reason of his training in many ways a grown-up boy. There were times when the cackle of the House Common Room bored him, at which he would have enjoyed a few minutes' conversation with an older man—say upon the morning's news, or some book recently disinterred from the top shelf of the House library. But intercourse with his Housemaster was not for him. Mr. Brett, finding that Philip knew little Latin and no Greek, had dismissed him abruptly to the Modern Side, as one of that noxious but necessary band of pariahs whose tainted but necessary contributions make it possible for the elect to continue the pursuit of Classics. As for Philip's football promise, it was nothing to Mr. Brett. This most consistent of men considered the worship of football "a fetish."

All hope of further intimacy between this antagonistic pair ended during the following summer term, when to Philip's unutterable amazement, Mr. Brett declined to speak to him for the space of three days, because Philip, by inadvertently running out the most promising batsman on his side in the course of a Junior House League match, had deprived Mr. Brett of a possible two points out of the total necessary to secure the Junior House Cricket Cup. The incident did not disturb Philip's peace of mind to any extent. It merely crystallised his opinion of his Housemaster. He possessed a large measure of his uncle's gift of terse summarisation of character.

"This chap," he observed to himself, "is the most almighty and unutterable sweep in the scholastic profession, besides being a silly baby. I must turn him down, that's all."

Henceforward Philip went his own way. He met his Housemaster but seldom, for he was naturally excluded from such unofficial hospitalities as Sunday breakfasts and half-holiday teas. Neither did the two come into official collision, for Philip was a glutton for work and reached the top of the Modern Side by giant strides. The only direct result of their strained relations was that Philip was not made a prefect when the time came. Mr. Brett could not reconcile his conscience to placing in a position of authority a boy who was neither in Classic nor a cricketer, who was lacking in esprit-de-corps, and made a fetish of football and science.

But Philip was contented enough. True, he could not take his meals at the high table, neither could he set fags running errands for him, but he possessed resources denied to most boys. He became the devoted disciple of one of the junior Science masters, Mr. Eden, who, almost delirious with joy at having discovered a boy who loved Science for its own sake and not merely because the pursuit thereof excused him from Latin Verse, took Philip to his bosom. Under his direction Philip read widely and judiciously, and was permitted in fulness of time to embark upon "research work"—that is, to potter about the laboratory during his spare hours and make himself familiar with the use and manipulation of every piece of apparatus that he encountered.

He had his friends in the House, too. There was Desborough, a big lazy member of the Fifth, the son of an Irish baronet, much more interested in sport than games, though he was a passable enough athlete. Desborough disliked the rigidity of Mr. Brett's rÉgime, and pined occasionally for the spacious freedom of his country home, with its dogs and guns by day, and bridge and billiards in the evening. Then there was Laird, a Scot of Scots, much too deeply interested in the question of his future career as a Cabinet Minister to suffer compulsory games and unprofitable conversation with any degree of gladness. And there was Lemaire, the intellectual giant of the House, who, though high up in the Sixth, was considered by Mr. Brett to have forfeited all right to a position of authority among his fellows by having been born into the world with a club foot. But though he could play no games, Lemaire exacted more respect and consideration from the House than Mr. Brett dreamed of, for he possessed a quick wit and a blistering tongue.

It was with these three that Philip foregathered during his later years at school. The Quartette, as they were called, resembled second-year undergraduates rather than third-year schoolboys in their attitude to life and their methods of recreation. Being endowed with no authority they escaped the obsession of responsibility which lies so heavily upon the shoulders of youthful officialdom, and they conformed to the rules of the House and School with indulgent tolerance, observing the spirit rather than the letter of the law. Which was just as well, for boys in their position could have done incalculable harm had they felt so disposed. The prefects were secretly afraid of them, and left them to themselves. The House as a whole venerated them, especially Philip and Desborough, and would gladly have been admitted to greater intimacy. But the Quartette would have none of them. They preferred to hold aloof from the turbulent camaraderie of the Common Room and congregate in one or other of their studies, where it was rumoured that they talked politics.

But rumour was wrong, or at any rate only partially in possession of the facts, as you shall hear.

IV

The Studley masters were not a particularly gregarious body. The Head lived in secluded state with his wife and four daughters in his official residence on the north side of the Close, emerging periodically to overawe the Sixth, preach in Chapel, or discharge a thunderbolt in Big School. The Housemasters dwelt severally in their own strongholds, thanking Heaven that their Houses were not as other Houses were; and the Junior Staff lived roundabout, in cottages and chummeries and snuggeries, throughout Studley Village.

But once a week the whole hierarchy foregathered in the Masters' Common Room and dined together. Usually the Head presided in person; and from the soup to the savoury every soul present talked shop.

Schoolmasters appear to be quite unique in this respect. For three months on end they live in everlasting contact with boys. Sleepy boys confront them in those grisly hours of school which occur before breakfast. Restless and inattentive boys occupy their undivided attention from breakfast until luncheon. In the afternoon they play games with, or watch games played by, energetic and overheated boys. From four o'clock till six they stimulate the flagging energies of boys who are comfortably tired and inclined to be drowsy. In their spare time they lavish individual pains upon backward boys, or castigate sinful boys, or fraternise with friendly boys, or comfort unhappy boys. At the very end of the day they pray with and for all the boys together.

A man who has never been a schoolmaster might be excused for supposing that when this overdriven band desisted from their labours and sat down to their evening meal, they would turn with a sigh of relief to some extraneous and irrelevant topic—politics; literature; sport; scandal, even. But no—they never talk of anything but boys—boys' work, boys' games, boys' pranks, boys' crimes, boys' prospects. They bore one another intensely, these excellent men; for just as no young mother ever desires to hear of or talk about the achievements of any other baby than her own, so no keen cricketing coach will listen with anything but impatience to glowing accounts of his next-door neighbour's protÉgÉs. But they never desist. The shop varies, but boy is the only theme.

This weakness is not confined to schoolmasters, of course. All bodies of men of the same calling herded together for protracted periods of time are inclined to the habit, but most of them take elaborate precautions to eradicate it. In military and naval circles, for instance, certain subjects are tabu. Even undergraduates mulct one another in pots of beer if the line be crossed. But schoolmasters are incorrigible. They talk boy and nothing else. The explanation is simple. Boys are the most interesting things in the world.

Studley Senior Common Room was no exception. At the top of the table the Head and his senior colleagues discussed high-school politics—scholarships, roseola, and the latest eccentricity of the Governing Body. About the middle of the table, where housemasters and form-masters were intermingled, a housemaster would explain to a form-master, with studious moderation and paternal solemnity, that owing to the incompetence, prejudice, and spite of the form-master a certain godly and virtuous youth named Jinks tertius was making no progress in his studies, and was, moreover, acutely depressed by the injustice with which he was being borne down. In reply to this the form-master would point out in the most courteous and conciliatory tones, that the said Jinks was an idle young scoundrel, and that until the housemaster abandoned his present short-sighted and officious policy of habitually intervening between Jinks and his deserts,—to wit, the rod,—no further progress could possibly be expected. Why couldn't housemasters back form-masters up a bit? And so on. Lower down the table, three single-minded partisans were hotly disputing as to whether, upon a given date last summer, in a given junior inter-form cricket match, one Maggs (of the Lower Remove) did or did not feloniously give one Baggs (of the Upper Fourth) out leg-before-wicket at the instigation of a muscular bowler named Craggs. The only two persons at the table who were not talking boy were Mr. Chigley and Mr. Cleeve. Mr. Chigley, between mouthfuls, complained bitterly and unceasingly of the food; while Mr. Cleeve remorselessly conducted an inattentive audience, hole by hole, step by step, stroke by stroke, through the intricacies of a battle fought by himself against apparently incredible odds that afternoon—and of a victory snatched away on the last green, seemingly by the sudden and officious intervention of Providence, after what must have been one of the worst and most uninteresting exhibitions of golf ever seen.

Dinner ended, the company dispersed abruptly, summoned back from refreshment to the neverending labours of the schoolmaster, by House-prayers, scholarship coaching, or the necessity of administering justice. Mr. Brett and two other housemasters were invited by the Head to a rubber of bridge.

"By the way," observed the great man as they cut for partners, "you fellows must really see that your boys wear greatcoats on their way up to and down from football. Last Saturday I noticed four or five young idiots, in a most overheated condition, standing about on Big Side watching the Fifteen without so much as a sweater among them. It nearly gave me pneumonia to look at them. You and I, I think, Brett. We have choice of seats."

"I think I will sit away from the fire," said Mr. Brett. "My deal, I think. Will you cut to me, Haydock? Personally, I never permit any boy in my House to go up to the playing-fields without his greatcoat. Hearts!"

"My feeling in the matter," said Mr. Allnutt, on Brett's left, "has been, and always will be, that we coddle boys a great deal too much. In my young days at—"

"Hearts!" repeated Mr. Brett loudly.

"In my young days at Chiddleham," pursued Mr. Allnutt, quite unruffled, "sweaters had not been invented, and"—he threw out his chest proudly—"we were none of us a penny the worse. Shall I play to a heart, partner?"

"If you please," said Mr. Haydock patiently.

Mr. Brett played the hand and won the odd trick.

"The nuisance about occasional apparel, such as a greatcoat," said Mr. Haydock, gathering up the cards, "is that a boy wears his some wet morning up to school, and at the end of the hour, finding that the sun is shining and being a forgetful animal, comes down without it. Net result—a greatcoat kicking about in a passage till it is lost or appropriated. Your deal, partner."

"It is merely a matter of taking a little trouble," said Mr. Brett precisely. "Once boys have been taught to grasp the fact that rules are made to be obeyed and not ignored, the thing is simple. My House—"

"Partner, I leave it to you," said Mr. Allnutt, fortissimo.

"No trumps!" said Mr. Haydock.

"As a matter of fact, Brett," observed the Head, as the dummy was laid down,—he was a genial despot, and Mr. Brett's pedantic fussiness was a perpetual thorn in his flesh,—"the boys I saw on Saturday were yours."

Mr. Allnutt laughed loudly, and Mr. Brett, greatly put out, omitted to return the Head's lead, with the result that his opponents made four odd tricks.

"Game!" announced Mr. Allnutt, quite superfluously. "Thank you, partner. Pretty work!"

"It was a pity you did not return my diamond, Brett," remarked the Head mildly. He was counted one of the great Headmasters of his time, but he was as human as the rest of us where lost tricks were concerned. "I had the game in my hand."

Mr. Brett stiffly expressed regret, and continued:

"Would you mind giving me the names of the boys you saw? I simply can't understand it. I think there must be some mistake. No boy in my House—"

"As a matter of fact," said Haydock,—he was the acknowledged peacemaker and mediator of the Staff,—"it is very difficult to get boys to wear their greatcoats. I can't help sympathising with them. They usually don't require them at all, for they run straight up to their game and straight down again. But when, as sometimes happens, they find an exciting match going on on Big Side, they can't resist the temptation of waiting for a minute or two—"

Mr. Allnutt interrupted. Listening to other people was not a foible of his.

"Nonsense!" he said with great gusto, as the Head began to deal the next hand. "You can't tether healthy boys with red tape. Always disregard red tape—that's my motto!" (By red tape Mr. Allnutt meant instructions from headquarters which did not happen to meet with his approval.) "Now, my boys—"

"Spades!" said the Head, gloomily.

"Shall I play to a spade, partner?" asked Mr. Haydock.

"Certainly, so far as I am concerned," said Mr. Allnutt. "Glad to be out of it!"

Mr. Brett, whose hand contained four aces, flung his cards upon the table and glared at his superior.

"Very sorry, Brett," said the Head, "but it had to be done. I had nothing above a nine in my hand. I was afraid they would double anything you declared. My cut, I think, Haydock."

For the next ten minutes, fortunately, Mr. Brett was too much chagrined to speak, and the topic of the overcoats was allowed to drop.

The game continued for another few rounds, with the luck fairly evenly divided and the scoring low. Presently the Head, who usually contrived to achieve a good deal of quiet legislation during these social evenings, remarked:—

"We shall have to create three new School monitors at the end of the term. Have you any candidates, Allnutt?"

"You can select any boy in my House you like," replied Allnutt. He was habitually truculent to those set in authority over him,—he regarded them as a humanised form of red tape,—but the shrewd Head, who knew that Allnutt was a good man at bottom, suffered him with humourous resignation. "They are all equally incompetent. Luckily I am in the habit of looking after my House myself, and not leaving it to half-baked policemen."

"Thank you," said the Head. "That leaves me with a comfortably free hand. Have you any one to recommend, Brett?"

"Yes," said Brett. "I have. I have considered the matter most carefully. I have at least four boys who would make admirable monitors—"

"Game all!" said Mr. Allnutt impatiently. "Your deal, Brett."

—"And I have decided," continued Mr. Brett, bending his brows judicially, "to recommend Ericson and Smythe."

"Nincompoops, both of them," observed Mr. Allnutt at once.

"I fancy Brett was addressing the Headmaster," said Haydock drily.

"Oh, this is quite an informal discussion," said Mr. Allnutt cheerfully. "The best boys in your House, Brett, are Meldrum and Lemaire. Why don't you recommend them?"

With a great effort Mr. Brett kept his temper.

"They do not happen to be House prefects," he replied stiffly, "and are therefore ineligible for monitorships."

Much to Mr. Brett's discomfiture, all three of his companions turned and gazed at him in undisguised astonishment.

"Why, man," burst out Mr. Allnutt, "Lemaire is the most brilliant boy in the School!"

"His bodily infirmity"—began Mr. Brett majestically.

"I see, I see," said Allnutt. "Bodily infirmity is a bar to promotion in your House; but not mental infirmity—eh? I suppose you have noticed that Ericson is a congenital idiot?"

Mr. Brett, pursing his lips, began to deal the cards with great stateliness.

"And what about Meldrum?" continued Mr. Allnutt, following up his attack. "He has more character than all the rest of your House put together."

"Unfortunately," replied Mr. Brett icily, "he has no brains."

Here Mr. Brett made a serious blunder. He offended the only man in the room who might have felt inclined to protect him from the bludgeonings of Mr. Allnutt. Mr. Haydock happened to be senior mathematical master at Studley, and like all broad-minded men hated anything like intellectual snobbery.

"Meldrum," he remarked, "is the soundest mathematician in the School, and quite the most brilliant scientist we have had for ten years."

"Possibly, possibly," said Mr. Brett; "but that does not affect my point. No trumps!"

Mr. Haydock flushed red at this gratuitous piece of offensiveness. But he said nothing, and took up his cards.

"Shall I play to no trumps, partner?" enquired Mr. Allnutt.

Mr. Haydock glanced over his hand, and sighed to himself, softly and gratefully.

"I shall double no trumps," he said.

Mr. Brett grew greatly excited.

"I shall redouble!" he exclaimed.

"And I," replied Mr. Haydock gently, "shall double again."

The Head, upon whom the asperities of the last ten minutes (since he might not take part therein himself) had begun to pall, sat up, startled, and the game began—at ninety-six points a trick.

Mr. Brett's hand contained eight spades, to the ten, knave, queen, king; the aces of clubs, hearts, and diamonds; and two small clubs. It was a tempting but treacherous hand, for singleton aces are but broken reeds.

Mr. Haydock had nine hearts to the knave, queen, king; the ace of spades; and the king of clubs, singly guarded. His hope of salvation was founded on the sure and certain knowledge that Mr. Allnutt would lead him a heart, for they conformed to the heart convention. Assuming that Mr. Brett held the ace, the hearts could be established in a single round. After this he looked to his ace of spades or king of clubs to regain the lead for him. Of course if Brett held an overwhelming hand of diamonds the game was lost. There was also the possibility that Allnutt had no heart to lead. But there seemed to be a good sporting chance of success.

And sure enough the Fates—very justly, considering his recent behaviour to Mr. Haydock—fought against Mr. Brett. Mr. Allnutt led a small heart; the Head, with a rueful smile, laid down a hand containing two knaves and a ten; Mr. Haydock played the king; and Mr. Brett, having nothing else, took the trick with the ace.

Then Mr. Brett, scrutinising his hand and putting two and two together, broke into a gentle perspiration.

The ace of spades—the one card necessary to give him every trick but two—was in the hands of the enemy. Still, eight spades to the ten, knave, queen, king, mean seven tricks once you have forced the ace out. Hoping blindly for the best, and pretending not to hear the contented rumblings of Mr. Allnutt, the wretched Mr. Brett played the ten of spades.

Mr. Haydock promptly took the trick with the ace, and then proceeded to make eight tricks in hearts. After this he graciously permitted Mr. Brett to make his other two aces and remaining spade.

"Three tricks," said Mr. Haydock. "Game and rubber."

"Hard luck, partner," murmured the Head heroically.

"What exactly," enquired Mr. Allnutt, brimming over with happy laughter, "does three times ninety-six come to? Two hundred and eighty-eight? Thanks. What a lightning calculator you are, Haydock. A mathematician has his points—eh, Brett?"

V

It was nearly ten o'clock. Most of the boys were in their dormitories by this time, either in bed or cultivating the rites of Mr. Sandow. Only the seniors lingered downstairs. Various young gentlemen who shortly meditated a descent upon one of the Universities sat in their studies with curtains closely drawn, painfully translating a Greek not spoken in Greece into an English not spoken anywhere. The Quartette were all together in Philip's study, engaged in one of the commonest recreations of English gentlemen.

Presently Desborough uncoiled his long legs from under the table, and stretched himself.

"Fairly average frowst in here," he observed. "Anybody mind if I open the window?"

Silence gave consent. The curtains slid back, and some much-needed oxygen was admitted. A long ray of light shot out into the darkness of the night.

It fell across the path of Mr. Brett, returning from his bridge party. The evening breezes played about his brow, but failed to cool it. He was in a towering rage. His management of his own House; his powers of selecting suitable lieutenants; these things had been called into question that night—called into question and condemned. And—he had lost five-and-sixpence to Allnutt.

Suddenly his homeward way was illumined by electric light. It came from the window of Philip Meldrum's study, which was situated upon the ground floor. Mr. Brett paused, drew near, and surveyed the scene within. In the confined space of the study he beheld four boys sitting closely round a table.

A minute later he was fumbling for his latchkey at his own front door. He was in a frenzy of excitement. He did not pause to reflect. Humour was not his strong point, or it might possibly have occurred to him that the present situation possessed a certain piquancy of its own. Had Mr. Allnutt been present he would have made an apposite reference to the Old Obadiah and the Young Obadiah. All that Mr. Brett realised was the fact that Providence had most unexpectedly put into his hand the means of vindicating his own infallibility as a judge of boy character, and—of scoring off Allnutt for all time.

With eager steps he passed through his own quarters, and hurried down the long panelled corridor in which the boys' studies were situated. He opened Philip's door quickly, without knocking, and stood glaring balefully through his spectacles upon the culprits.

Their heads were sunk upon their chests, but not with shame. In fact they entirely failed to observe Mr. Brett's avenging presence.

The first person to speak was Philip, who was sitting with his back to the door. He threw his cards down upon the table and said cheerfully:—

"Well done, partner! Three tricks, doubled—that's seventy-two. Game and rubber, and you owe me fourpence, young Laird of Cockpen! Now, what about bed?"

VI

No one was expelled, though in the first frenzy of his triumph Mr. Brett was for telephoning for four cabs on the spot.

The Head gave judgment in due course, and though he had no particular difficulty in dealing with the criminals, he experienced some trouble in handling the counsel for the prosecution.

To him the overheated Brett pointed out that the delinquents had been caught redhanded in the sin of betting and gambling. He explained that smoking, drinking, and cards invariably went together, and that consequently nothing remained but to request the respective parents and guardians of the Quartette to remove them with all possible despatch before they contaminated any of the Classics or Cricketers in the House.

The Head heard him out, and remarked drily:—

"Mr. Brett, you should cultivate a sense of proportion. It is a useful quality in a schoolmaster. Your scheme of retribution, if I may say so, is a little lacking in elasticity. There are degrees of crime, you know. Under your penal code the man who has been caught playing pitch-and-toss is hurried to the gallows with the same celerity as the man who has garotted an Archbishop. Don't you think that this scheme of yours of uniform penalty for everything rather encourages the criminal to go the whole hog and have his money's worth? Now observe: the offence of these boys was a purely technical one. A game of cards between gentlemen for stakes which they can reasonably afford"—the Quartette played for twopence a hundred—"is not in itself an indictable offence. I only wish that boys would always employ their spare time so profitably!" added the Head regretfully. "Personally, I should sincerely like to see every boy in this School grounded systematically in the elements of whist or bridge. It would improve his memory and inculcate habits of observation and deduction, and would at least furnish him with an alternative to the cinematograph on a wet afternoon in the holidays. Unfortunately we have the British parent to deal with. However, that is a digression. These boys are not of the stuff that debauchees are made of. The trouble lies in the fact that they are rather more mature than their fellows. Do you know, I expect they play bridge because they like it, and find it a more pleasant relaxation at the end of the day than cooking unholy messes over their study fires or gossiping in the dormitory? I must also point out to you that by not appointing them to a position of authority you have thrown them more or less on their own resources. They may not associate with the aristocracy of the House, and they are more than a cut above the common herd. So they form themselves into a very snug and exclusive little coterie, and I for one don't blame them. But send them along to me, and I will deal faithfully with them."

To the Quartette the Head pointed out that there is a time and place for everything, and that rules, if not enforced, bring mockery and discredit upon their authors.

"Bridge is an excellent game," he said, "and a true mental gymnastic. But there happens to be a regulation here which forbids the playing of cards by boys among themselves. We need not go into the soundness of that regulation: the only relevant point is that you have broken it. You are big boys, and the bigger the boy the bigger the offence. I am going to make the punishment fit the crime by asking Mr. Brett to turn you out of your studies for the rest of the term. For the next four weeks you will consort with the profanum vulgus in your House Common Room, where I fancy that bridge and other intellectual pursuits are not much cultivated. Now you can go."

The Quartette turned dismally towards the door. It was a stiff sentence. But the Head had not quite finished.

"It would be interesting," he added drily, "to know whether you play bridge because you like it or because you think it a grand thing to do. Come and dine with me on Saturday night, and we will have a rubber."

"Sportsman, the old Head!" commented Philip, as they walked across the quadrangle.

"My word, yes!" said the other three.

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