the more
experienced masters. Originally he had intended to be friends with his
pupils, and Mr. Pembroke commended the intention highly; but you cannot
be friends either with boy or man unless you give yourself away in
the process, and Mr. Pembroke did not commend this. He, for "personal
intercourse," substituted the safer "personal influence," and gave his
junior hints on the setting of kindly traps, in which the boy does give
himself away and reveals his shy delicate thoughts, while the master,
intact, commends or corrects them. Originally Rickie had meant to help
boys in the anxieties that they undergo when changing into men: at
Cambridge he had numbered this among life's duties. But here is a
subject in which we must inevitably speak as one human being to another,
not as one who has authority or the shadow of authority, and for this
reason the elder school-master could suggest nothing but a few formulae.
Formulae, like kindly traps, were not in Rickie's line, so he abandoned
these subjects altogether and confined himself to working hard at what
was easy. In the house he did as Herbert did, and referred all doubtful
subjects to him. In his form, oddly enough, he became a martinet. It
is so much simpler to be severe. He grasped the school regulations,
and insisted on prompt obedience to them. He adopted the doctrine of
collective responsibility. When one boy was late, he punished the whole
form. "I can't help it," he would say, as if he was a power of nature.
As a teacher he was rather dull. He curbed his own enthusiasms, finding
that they distracted his attention, and that while he throbbed to the
music of Virgil the boys in the back row were getting unruly. But on the
whole he liked his form work: he knew why he was there, and Herbert did
not overshadow him so completely.

What was amiss with Herbert? He had known that something was amiss,
and had entered into partnership with open eyes. The man was kind and
unselfish; more than that he was truly charitable, and it was a real
pleasure to him to give--pleasure to others. Certainly he might talk too
much about it afterwards; but it was the doing, not the talking, that he
really valued, and benefactors of this sort are not too common. He was,
moreover, diligent and conscientious: his heart was in his work, and
his adherence to the Church of England no mere matter of form. He was
capable of affection: he was usually courteous and tolerant. Then what
was amiss? Why, in s