hat I would be sent to a
country school after the next holidays, and meanwhile I was allowed
to return to my sofa and my dreams. I lay there and read Dickens and
was very happy. As a rule the cat kept me company, and I was pleased
with his placid society, though he made my legs cramped. I thought
that I too would like to be a cat.

The New Boy

I

When I left home to go to boarding-school for the first time I did
not cry like the little boys in the story-books, though I had never
been away from home before except to spend holidays with relatives.
This was not due to any extraordinary self-control on my part, for I
was always ready to shed tears on the most trivial occasion. But as a
fact I had other things to think about, and did not in the least
realise the significance of my journey. I had lots of new clothes and
more money in my pocket than I had ever had before, and in the
guard's van at the back of the train there was a large box that I had
packed myself with jam and potted meat and cake. In this, as in other
matters, I had been aided by the expert advice of a brother who was
himself at a school in the North, and it was perhaps natural that in
the comfortable security of the holidays he should have given me an
almost lyrical account of the joys of life at a boarding-school.
Moreover, my existence as a day-boy in London had been so unhappy;
that I was prepared to welcome any change, so at most I felt only a
vague unease as to the future.

After I had glanced at my papers, I sat back and stared at my eldest
brother, who had been told off to see me safely to school. At that
time I did not like him because he seemed to me unduly insistent on
his rights and I could not help wondering at the tactlessness of the
grown-up people in choosing him as my travelling companion. With any
one else this journey might have been a joyous affair but there were
incidents between us that neither of us would forget, so that I
could find nothing better than an awkward politeness with which to
meet his strained amiability. He feigned an intense interest in his
magazine while I looked out of window, with one finger in my
waistcoat pocket, scratching the comfortable milled edges of my
money. When I saw little farm-houses, forgotten in the green dimples
of the Kentish hills, I thought that it would be nice to live there
with a room full of story-books, away from the discomforts and
difficulties of