the more comfortably discuss his end with Radley. "I've always
managed to do what I've wanted and to come out of it all right."

"Oh, you have, have you?" sneered Chappy.

"Always," answered Penny, unabashed. "It's a favourite saying of my
mother's that 'adverse conditions will never conquer her wilful
son.'"

"Good God!" cried the doctor, rightly appalled.

"Yes," continued the speaker, delighted to tease the doctor, "for
instance, I made up my mind all the time I was here to stick in a
low form. It was an easier life, and fun to boss kids like Edgar Doe
and Rupert Ray. And I pulled all the strings of the famous Bramhall
Riot, as Ray knows. And I just did sufficient work to pass into
Sandhurst. And I shall be just satisfactory enough to get my
commission. Then I shall do all in my power to provoke a European
War, so that there will be a good chance of promotion--"

"There's a type of man," interrupted Radley, "who'd start a prairie
fire, if it were the only way to light his pipe."

"Exactly. And I am he."

"Good God!" repeated Chappy.

"And, after peace is declared, I shall settle down to a comfortable
life at the club."

"It's a relief," smiled Radley, "that you won't lead a revolution
and usurp the throne."

"Too much trouble. I may go into Parliament, which is a comfortable
job. On the Tory side, of course, because there you don't have to
think."

"You've about fifty years of life," suggested Radley. "And don't you
want to do anything constructive in that time?"

"Not in these trousers! I know that, if I were sincere and
constructive in my politics, I should be a Socialist. It stands to
reason that it can't be right for all the wealth to be in the
pockets of the few, and for there to be a distinct and cocky
governing class. But, as I want to amass wealth and enjoy the
position of the ruling class, I shall be careful not to think out my
politics, lest I develop a pernicious Socialism."

"Oh, Lord!" groaned the doctor.

"I think _I_'m a Socialist," suddenly put in Doe, and Chappy turned
to him, dumbfounded to witness the eruption of a second youth.
"I've long thought that, when I find my feet in politics, I shall be
in the Socialist camp. They may be visionary, but they are
idealists. And I think it's up to us public-schoolboys to lead the
great mass of uneducated people, who can't articulate their needs.
I'd love to be their leader."

"What you're going to be," said Radley, "is an intellectual
r