d without excitement for the next words.

"Out of a possible thousand marks, Sheen, who wins the scholarship,
obtained seven hundred and one, Stanning six hundred and four,
Wilson...."

Sheen walked out of the Hall in the unique position of a Gotford winner
with only one friend to congratulate him. Jack Bruce was the one. The
other six hundred and thirty-three members of the school made no
demonstration.

There was a pleasant custom at Seymour's of applauding at tea any
Seymourite who had won distinction, and so shed a reflected glory on
the house. The head of the house would observe, "Well played,
So-and-So!" and the rest of the house would express their emotion in
the way that seemed best to them, to the subsequent exultation of the
local crockery merchant, who had generally to supply at least a dozen
fresh cups and plates to the house after one of these occasions. When
it was for getting his first eleven or first fifteen cap that the lucky
man was being cheered, the total of breakages sometimes ran into the
twenties.

Rigby, good, easy man, was a little doubtful as to what course to
pursue in the circumstances. Should he give the signal? After all, the
fellow _had_ won the Gotford. It was a score for the house, and
they wanted all the scores they could get in these lean years. Perhaps,
then, he had better.

"Well played, Sheen," said he.

There was a dead silence. A giggle from the fags' table showed that the
comedy of the situation was not lost on the young mind.

The head of the house looked troubled. This was awfully awkward.

"Well played, Sheen," he said again.

"Don't mention it, Rigby," said the winner of the Gotford politely,
looking up from his plate.

XVIII

MR BEVAN MAKES A SUGGESTION

When one has been working hard with a single end in view, the arrival
and departure of the supreme moment is apt to leave a feeling of
emptiness, as if life had been drained of all its interest, and left
nothing sufficiently exciting to make it worth doing. Horatius, as he
followed his plough on a warm day over the corn land which his
gratified country bestowed on him for his masterly handling of the
traffic on the bridge, must sometimes have felt it was a little tame.
The feeling is far more acute when one has been unexpectedly baulked in
one's desire for action. Sheen, for the first few days after he
received Drummond's brief note, felt that it was useless for him to try
to do anything. The Fates w