emed to stir in me--not so as to wake,
but so as to wake soon. I felt some vague premonition of all the
love, the sentiment, and the sorrow which would be mine in the
manhood that was brightening to a pale, but tinted, dawn.

_Part II: Long, Long Thoughts_

CHAPTER VII

CAUGHT ON THE BEATEN TRACK

Sec.1

I am sixteen now, and the marks on the dormitory wall show me that I
am many inches nearer the height of my ambition, which is the height
of Radley. Second in importance, Kensingtowe has a new headmaster,
an extraordinary phenomenon in the scholastic heavens, a long man of
callow years and restless activity, with a stoop and a pointing
forefinger. He has a quaint habit, when addressing a bewildered
pupil, of prefacing his remarks, be they gracious or damnatory, with
the formula: "Ee, bless me, my man." (Nowadays none of us speaks to
a schoolfellow without beginning: "Ee, bless me, my man.") "Salome"
we call the entertaining creature. This nickname adhered like a
barnacle to him, immediately after he had employed, in his exegesis
of the Greek narrative of Herodias' daughter, the expression: "Now,
if I had been Salome--"

Ill fares it with a youth, if he has his hands in his pockets and is
seen by Salome. Before he is aware of the great presence, that stoop
overhangs him, that forefinger points to the tip of his nose, and a
drawling voice says with rhythmic emphasis: "Ee, bless me, my
man, you've _got_--your _hands_--in your _pockets_. Take off your
spectacles, sir. I'm _going_--to _smack_--your _face_."

And he can put his foot down, too. The Bramhallites recently
organised a very successful punitive raid on the local errand boys,
who were getting too uppish, and now he has stopped all "exeats"
for the members of Bramhall House. The town is out of bounds.

Third in importance is my quarrel with Edgar Doe. It began, I think,
with his jealousy of me as Radley's new favourite. Then he has
apparently thrown over all desire for glory in the cricket world and
decided that, for an elect mind such as his, a reputation for
intellectual brilliance is the only seemly fame. He delights to
shock us by boldly saying that he would rather win the Horace Prize
than his First Eleven Colours; and is actually at work, I believe,
on a translation of the Odes into English verse. At any rate, he is
two forms ahead of Penny and me, and has joined the Intellectuals.
He has views on the Pre-Raphaelites, Romanticism, and the H