o do
it again. At the most a mild four would have been considered ample.
But eight! It was undeniably excessive. If it had only been someone
else it wouldn't have mattered so much (for abstract justice made no
great appeal to Spots), but there was that kid slinking about his study
and cleaning everything that he could lay hold of with maddening
assiduity. Not for a moment could he forget his iniquity. One thing,
however, was certain. It would be quite inconsistent with the dignity
of a blood to say anything about what had occurred. So Martin noticed
several changes in Spots' demeanour. He was more silent and did not
rag him as before: nor did he follow his custom of bringing the Greek
prose to Martin on Tuesdays and Fridays. Nobly he toiled at it alone
and was roundly abused in form on the following days. But the memory
of youth is short and soon they drifted back into the old friendly
relations. Martin, however, took good care not to be guilty of further
slips, for though he was glad now that he had been swiped, he did not
in the least wish it to happen again.

The term ran smoothly on. Caruth was adopted, to his infinite joy, by
Cullen and Neave and the youthful nuts, while Martin drifted into more
soulful society. He was even taken up in a kindly way by the poet of
Borrowdale, who lent him an anthology and used to hold forth to him
about men and letters. Martin was very much impressed and could not
decide what to think when Spots said the poet was a bilger. To Martin
the voice of Spots was still the voice of a god. Later on he heard the
poet call Spots 'a piffling Philistine,' but he did not know what it
meant and was ashamed to ask. Life began to expand in many directions
and new doors pressed themselves on his attention with haunting
urgency. On the whole Martin was enjoying his first term.

And so he settled down gladly to the routine. School life is liable to
a clearly marked dichotomy; there is a world of games and a world of
work. For Martin both had their pleasure, both their monotony.
Football, for instance, distinctly afforded moments. There were
seventy minutes of consummate joy while the school, released from the
round of "league" games, watched the match with their greatest rival,
Ashminster. Martin never forgot that struggle. It was the first
school match which he had been able to see, and he had not yet escaped
from the age of worship, the age in which every blood is a true
Olym