es
the prefects a heap too much power, an'--an'--it rots up everything. You
see, it isn't as if we were just an ordinary school. We take crammers'
rejections as well as good little boys like Stalky. We've got to do that
to make our name, of course, and we get 'em into Sandhurst somehow or
other, don't we?"

"True, O Turk. Like a book thou talkest, Turkey."

"And so we want rather different masters, don't you think so, to other
places? We aren't like the rest of the schools."

"It leads to all sorts of bullyin', too, a chap told me," said Beetle.

"Well, you _do_ need most of a single man's time, I must say." The
Reverend John considered his hosts critically. "But do you never feel
that the world--the Common-room--is too much with you sometimes?"

"Not exactly--in summer, anyhow." Stalky's eye roved contentedly to the
window. "Our bounds are pretty big, too, and they leave us to ourselves
a good deal."

"For example, here am I sitting in your study, very much in your way,
eh?"

"Indeed you aren't, Padre. Sit down. Don't go, sir. You know we're glad
whenever you come."

There was no doubting the sincerity of the voices. The Reverend John
flushed a little with pleasure and refilled his briar.

"And we generally know where the Common-room are," said Beetle
triumphantly. "Didn't you come through our lower dormitories last night
after ten, sir?"

"I went to smoke a pipe with your house-master. No, I didn't give him
any impressions. I took a short cut through your dormitories."

"I sniffed a whiff of 'baccy, this mornin'. Yours is stronger than Mr.
Prout's. _I_ knew," said Beetle, wagging his head.

"Good heavens!" said the Reverend John absently. It was some years
before Beetle perceived that this was rather a tribute to innocence than
observation. The long, light, blindless dormitories, devoid of inner
doors, were crossed at all hours of the night by masters visiting one
another; for bachelors sit up later than married folk. Beetle had never
dreamed that there might be a purpose in this steady policing.

"Talking about bullying," the Reverend John resumed, "you all caught it
pretty hot when you were fags, didn't you?"

"Well, we must have been rather awful little beasts," said Beetle,
looking serenely over the gulf between eleven and sixteen. "My Hat, what
bullies they were then--Fairburn, 'Gobby' Maunsell, and all that gang!"

"'Member when 'Gobby' called us the Three Blind Mice, and we had to get
up on t