Virgins. These clean and honest, if generally
rather stupid gentlemen, were the wielders of that afflatus, the
public-school spirit, and so far as Michael could see at present, Good
Eggs were more safe morally with that inspiration than they might have
been with any other. And if a touch of mysticism were needed, it might
be supplied by Freemasonry at the Apollo Lodge; while the Boy Scouts
were beginning to show how admirably this public-school spirit could
blow through the most unpromising material of the middle classes.

Michael so much enjoyed the consciousness of merit which is the supreme
inducement offered by all successful religions, and more than any by
Good Eggery, that he made up his mind quite finally that Good Eggery
would carry him through his existence, however much it were complicated
by the problem of Bad Mannery. During that year at Two Hundred and Two
he grew more and more deeply convinced that to challenge any moral
postulate of Good Eggery was merely contumacious self-esteem. One of the
great principles of Good Eggery was that the Good Egg must only esteem
himself as a valuable unit in Good Eggery. His self-esteem was entitled
to rise in proportion with the distance he could run or kick or throw or
hit.

Analyzed sharply, Michael admitted that Good Eggery rested on very frail
foundations, and it was really surprising with what enthusiasm it
managed to sustain the Good Eggs themselves, so that apparently without
either spiritual exaltation or despair, without disinterested politics
or patriotism, without any deep humanity even, the Good Eggs were still
so very obviously good. Certainly the suicide of Prescott made Michael
wonder how much that rather ignominious surrender by such a Good Egg
might have been avoided with something profounder than Good Eggery at
the back of life's experience. But suicide was an accident, Michael
decided, and could not be used in the arguments against the fundamental
soundness of Good Eggery as the finest social nourishment in these days
of a bourgeoning century.

Meanwhile, at St. Mary's the Good Eggs flourished, and time went by with
unexampled swiftness. In the last days of the Lent term, after St.
Mary's had been defeated by Christ Church in the final of the
Association Cup, Michael, Grainger and Lonsdale determined to drown woe
by a triple Twenty-firster. Every contemporary Good Egg in St. Mary's
and several from other colleges were invited. Forty Good Eggs, groomed