y at ten years of age, and
could always spot the worker and the slacker, which Lovelace major never
could. On the whole, taking a house game was not so terrifying after
all; by half-time he had forgotten his nervousness in his excitement at
watching how his side was going to shape.

"You know, I don't think Armour so rotten as people said he would be,"
said Gordon, as they came up after the game. "I thought he was all
right."

"Oh yes, he's not so bad; but he does not seem much when you shove him
next to Lovelace major."

"Well, you know," said Jeffries, "he does know something about forward
play, which I am damned if Lovelace did."

"Perhaps so; but all the same Lovelace was the man to win matches."
Mansell was an outside, and loved dash and brilliance, but the forwards
were not sorry to have someone in command who understood them. Armour
had begun well.

* * * * *

There are still people who will maintain that the ideal schoolboy in
school hours thinks only about Vergil and Sophocles, and in the field
concentrates entirely on drop kicks and yorkers. But that boy does not
exist; and in the Easter term it is impossible to think of anything but
house matches. Those who were in the power of some form martinet had a
terrible time this term. But Gordon and Mansell found themselves safely
at rest in Claremont's form and Greek set, and made up their minds just
to stay there and do only enough work to avoid being bottled.

For the Lower Fifth was certainly the refuge of many weather-beaten
mariners. Pat Johnstone had laboriously worked up from the bottom form,
led on only by the hope that one day he would reach V. B, and there
repose at the back of the room, living his last terms in peace. Ruddock
had once set out with high hopes of reaching the Sixth; his first term
he had won a Divinity prize in the Shell. But under Claremont he had
discovered the truth, learnt long ago in the land of Lotus Eaters, "that
slumber is more sweet than toil!" The back benches of that room were
strewn with shattered hopes. Small intelligent scholars came up and
passed by on their way to Balliol Scholarships; but the faces at the
back of the room remained terribly somnolent and happy. A certain
Banbury had been there for three years and had earned the nickname of
"old Father Time," and Mansell, too, swore he would enrol himself with
the Lost Legion, while even Gordon said that nothing would shift him
from the