a first class.

A large boarding-school in England is like a miniature world. One
makes many acquaintances, who change as one gets pushed into new
classes, so at that stage one makes few lasting friends. Those who
remain till they attain the sixth form, and make the school teams,
probably form more permanent friendships. I at least think of that
period as one when one's bristles were generally up, and though many
happy memories linger, and I have found that to be an old Marlburian
is a bond of friendship all the world over, it is the little oddities
which one remembers best.

A new scholarship boy had one day been assigned to the closed
corporation of our particular class-room. To me he had many
attractions, for he was a genius both in mathematics and chemistry. We
used to love talking over the problems that were set us as voluntary
tasks for our spare time; and our united excursions in those
directions were so successful that we earned our class more than one
"hour off," as rewards for the required number of stars given for good
pieces of work. My friend had, however, no use whatever for
athletics. He had never been from home before, had no brothers, and
five sisters, was the pet of his parents, and naturally somewhat of a
square plug in a round hole in our school life. He hated all
conventions, and was always in trouble with the boys, for he entirely
neglected his personal appearance, while his fingers were always
discoloured with chemicals, and he would not even feign an interest in
the things for which they cared. I can remember him sitting on the
foot of my bed, talking me to sleep more than once with some new plan
he had devised for a self-steering torpedo or an absolutely reliable
flying machine. He had received the sobriquet of "Mad G.," and there
was some justice in it from the opposition point of view. I had not
realized, however, that he was being bullied--on such a subject he
would never say a syllable--till one day as he left class-room I saw a
large lump of coal hit him square on the head, and a rush of blood
follow it that made me hustle him off to surgery. Scalp wounds are not
so dangerous as they are bloody to heads as thick as ours. His
explanation that he had fallen down was too obvious a distortion of
truth to deceive even our kindly old doctor. But he asked no further
question, seeing that it was a point of honour. The matter, however,
forced an estrangement between myself and some of my fellows t