et
better prices. Catalogues were made out and sent to the various dealers in
second-hand books at Tercanbury, Maidstone, and Ashford.

One afternoon Philip took it into his head to go over to Tercanbury and
see his old school. He had not been there since the day when, with relief
in his heart, he had left it with the feeling that thenceforward he was
his own master. It was strange to wander through the narrow streets of
Tercanbury which he had known so well for so many years. He looked at the
old shops, still there, still selling the same things; the booksellers
with school-books, pious works, and the latest novels in one window and
photographs of the Cathedral and of the city in the other; the games shop,
with its cricket bats, fishing tackle, tennis rackets, and footballs; the
tailor from whom he had got clothes all through his boyhood; and the
fishmonger where his uncle whenever he came to Tercanbury bought fish. He
wandered along the sordid street in which, behind a high wall, lay the red
brick house which was the preparatory school. Further on was the gateway
that led into King's School, and he stood in the quadrangle round which
were the various buildings. It was just four and the boys were hurrying
out of school. He saw the masters in their gowns and mortar-boards, and
they were strange to him. It was more than ten years since he had left and
many changes had taken place. He saw the headmaster; he walked slowly down
from the schoolhouse to his own, talking to a big boy who Philip supposed
was in the sixth; he was little changed, tall, cadaverous, romantic as
Philip remembered him, with the same wild eyes; but the black beard was
streaked with gray now and the dark, sallow face was more deeply lined.
Philip had an impulse to go up and speak to him, but he was afraid he
would have forgotten him, and he hated the thought of explaining who he
was.

Boys lingered talking to one another, and presently some who had hurried
to change came out to play fives; others straggled out in twos and threes
and went out of the gateway, Philip knew they were going up to the cricket
ground; others again went into the precincts to bat at the nets. Philip
stood among them a stranger; one or two gave him an indifferent glance;
but visitors, attracted by the Norman staircase, were not rare and excited
little attention. Philip looked at them curiously. He thought with
melancholy of the distance that separated him from them, and he though