as one, can
I? I know much more than the boys, but I know very little. Surely the
honest thing is to be myself to them. Let them accept or refuse me as
that. That's the only attitude we shall any of us profit by in the end."

Mr. Pembroke was silent. Then he observed, "There is, as you say, a
higher attitude and a lower attitude. Yet here, as so often, cannot we
find a golden mean between them?"

"What's that?" said a dreamy voice. They turned and saw a tall,
spectacled man, who greeted the newcomer kindly, and took hold of his
arm. "What's that about the golden mean?"

"Mr. Jackson--Mr. Elliot: Mr. Elliot--Mr. Jackson," said Herbert, who
did not seem quite pleased. "Rickie, have you a moment to spare me?"

But the humanist spoke to the young man about the golden mean and
the pinchbeck mean, adding, "You know the Greeks aren't broad church
clergymen. They really aren't, in spite of much conflicting evidence.
Boys will regard Sophocles as a kind of enlightened bishop, and
something tells me that they are wrong."

"Mr. Jackson is a classical enthusiast," said Herbert. "He makes the
past live. I want to talk to you about the humdrum present."

"And I am warning him against the humdrum past. That's another point,
Mr. Elliot. Impress on your class that many Greeks and most Romans were
frightfully stupid, and if they disbelieve you, read Ctesiphon with
them, or Valerius Flaccus. Whatever is that noise?"

"It comes from your class-room, I think," snapped the other master.

"So it does. Ah, yes. I expect they are putting your little Tewson into
the waste-paper basket."

"I always lock my class-room in the interval--"

"Yes?"

"--and carry the key in my pocket."

"Ah. But, Mr. Elliot, I am a cousin of Widdrington's. He wrote to me
about you. I am so glad. Will you, first of all, come to supper next
Sunday?"

"I am afraid," put in Herbert, "that we poor housemasters must deny
ourselves festivities in term time."

"But mayn't he come once, just once?"

"May, my dear Jackson! My brother-in-law is not a baby. He decides for
himself."

Rickie naturally refused. As soon as they were out of hearing, Herbert
said, "This is a little unfortunate. Who is Mr. Widdrington?"

"I knew him at Cambridge."

"Let me explain how we stand," he continued, after a pause.

"Jackson is the worst of the reactionaries here, while I--why should I
conceal it?--have thrown in my lot with the party of progress. You will
see how we suf