nd John--but not the Caterpillar--had
got their remove. They were Fifth Form boys--and in tails! John, it
is true, although tougher and broader, was still short for his years
and juvenile of appearance, but Scaife and Desmond were quite big
fellows, and their new coats became them mightily. Trieve was Head of
the House; Lovell, Captain of the House football Eleven and in the
Lower Sixth.

"Lovell will have to behave himself now," the Duffer remarked to
Scaife, who laughed derisively, as he answered--

"He couldn't, even if he tried."

Warde welcomed the House at lock-up, and introduced the boys to his
wife and daughter. Mrs. Warde had a plain, pleasant face. Miss Warde,
however, was a beauty, and she knew it, the coquette, and had known it
from the hour she could peep into a mirror. The Caterpillar pronounced
her "fetching." Being only fifteen, she wore her hair in a plait tied
by a huge bow, and the hem of her skirt barely touched the neatest
ankle on Harrow Hill. Give her a saucy, pink-and-white face, pop a
pert tip-tilted nose into the middle of it just above a pouting red
mouth, and just below her father's lapis-lazuli eyes, and you will see
Iris Warde. Her hair was reddish, not red--call it a warm chestnut;
and she had a dimple.

After the introductions, mother and daughter left the hall. Warde
stood up, inviting the House to sit down. Warde was about half the
width of the late Rutford, but somehow he seemed to take up more room.
He had spent the summer holidays in Switzerland, climbing terrific
peaks. Snow and sun had coloured his clear complexion. John, who saw
beneath tanned skins, reflected that Warde seemed to be saturated with
fresh air and all the sweet clean things which one associates with
mountains. "He loves hills," thought John, "and he loves our Hill."
Warde began to speak in his jerky, confidential tones. Dirty Dick had
always been insufferably dull, pompous, and didactic.

"I don't like speechmaking," said Warde, "but I want to put one thing
to you as strongly as a man may. I have always wished to be master of
the Manor. Some men may think mine a small ambition. Master of a
house at Harrow? Nothing big about that. Perhaps not. But I think it
big. And it is big--for me. Understand that I'm in love with my
job--head over heels. I'd sooner be master of the Manor than Prime
Minister. I couldn't tackle his work. Enough of that. Now, forget
for a moment that I'm a Master.