y.

"Arlington. Arthur. Ashe. Aston."

"Here, sir," in a shrill treble from the rider in motorcars.

The headmaster made another tick.

The list came to an end after what seemed to the school an
unconscionable time, and he rolled up the paper again, and stepped to
the edge of the dais.

"All boys not in the Sixth Form," he said, "will go to their
form-rooms and get their books and writing-materials, and return
to the Hall."

("Good work," murmured Mr. Seymour to himself. "Looks as if we
should get that holiday after all.")

"The Sixth Form will go to their form-room as usual. I should like
to speak to the masters for a moment."

He nodded dismissal to the school.

The masters collected on the dais.

"I find that I shall not require your services to-day," said the
headmaster. "If you will kindly set the boys in your forms some work
that will keep them occupied, I will look after them here. It is a
lovely day," he added, with a smile, "and I am sure you will all enjoy
yourselves a great deal more in the open air."

"That," said Mr. Seymour to Mr. Spence, as they went downstairs, "is
what I call a genuine sportsman."

"My opinion neatly expressed," said Mr. Spence. "Come on the river. Or
shall we put up a net, and have a knock?"

"River, I think. Meet you at the boat-house."

"All right. Don't be long."

"If every day were run on these lines, school-mastering wouldn't be
such a bad profession. I wonder if one could persuade one's form to
run amuck as a regular thing."

"Pity one can't. It seems to me the ideal state of things. Ensures the
greatest happiness of the greatest number."

"I say! Suppose the school has gone up the river, too, and we meet
them! What shall we do?"

"Thank them," said Mr. Spence, "most kindly. They've done us well."

The school had not gone up the river. They had marched in a solid
body, with the school band at their head playing Sousa, in the
direction of Worfield, a market town of some importance, distant about
five miles. Of what they did and what the natives thought of it all,
no very distinct records remain. The thing is a tradition on the
countryside now, an event colossal and heroic, to be talked about in
the tap-room of the village inn during the long winter evenings. The
papers got hold of it, but were curiously misled as to the nature of
the demonstration. This was the fault of the reporter on the staff of
the _Worfield Intelligencer and Farmers' Guide_, who saw