gone too far,
he had lost grip, and a tremendous rag was imminent.

"Shut up," he roared with all the authority he could command.

And just then Rayner came in to take his spell of prep. There was an
immediate silence. Martin left the room in an agony of despair. What
the deuce would Rayner think?

As he sat in his study pretending to read Tacitus the prospect of
failure and misery became cruelly imminent. He couldn't make out why
the workroom people would shut up for Rayner. Rayner wasn't noted for
his severity and didn't make half as much use of the Iron Heel as some
of his predecessors in Berney's or contemporaries in other houses.
Martin was faced with the eternal paradox of government, that those who
can govern do not need to punish, while those who punish do not thereby
govern. He had always suspected the common talk about personalities
and strong men: but now he began to wonder whether there wasn't
something in it after all. Anyhow it seemed that by one action of
hesitation he had lost his chance: his prestige was going, and if he
once gained a reputation for 'raggability' there would be no more
peace. The memory of Barmy Walters and the sordid tumult of his
classroom came to him with a new piquancy.

"My God!" he said, "it sha'n't be that." He would have to go for
Granny. But how did one go for such a creature? Granny always kept to
the letter of the law and protested that he had meant nothing: was one
simply to disregard his assertions, to call him a liar? How did Rayner
manage? And there were the ideals. Would this method be consonant
with the humanism of the new prefecture? It was all immensely
difficult.

Later in the evening Rayner came to his study: he was very nice about
it.

"I say, old man," he said kindly, "that wasn't a good beginning."

"It certainly wasn't," admitted Martin.

"Granny, I suppose?" asked the other.

"Yes, mainly."

"Well there's only one thing for Master Gransby-Williams. Damp the
little beast."

"It's not so easy. He's always on the safe side of the fence. If he
swears that he didn't mean what you think he meant, you can't very well
do anything."

Rayner smiled.

"Can't you?" he said.

"Well, can you?"

"You jolly well must. Otherwise there'll be no end to it."

"All right, I'll try. But it seems rather rotten."

"Doesn't it strike you as rotten to be ragged by a tick like Granny?"

Martin had to admit that it was.

Three nights later M