travelled up
to London with Ferguson and Tester, and felt no small part of a giant
when Collins entered their carriage, suddenly saw Ferguson, and with
inaudible apologies vanished quickly down the corridor. Olympus was not
so very far off.

CHAPTER II: HEALTHY PHILISTINISM

During the Christmas holidays there appeared in a certain periodical one
of the usual attacks on the Public School system. It repeated all the
old arguments about keeping abreast of the times, and doing more modern
languages and less classics. The writer had nothing new to say, and,
like most other such attacks, his jeremiad was in an hour or two
forgotten. But at Fernhurst it did have some effect, for it gave Henry
Trundle the idea of forming a special class for French enthusiasts.
Henry Trundle was one of the French masters. He was entirely English,
had won his Blue for golf at Oxford, and had got a Double First. He also
was quite incapable of teaching anything. His form made no pretence of
keeping order; the noise that proceeded from his class-room could be
heard anywhere within a radius of a hundred yards. And yet he was not a
bad fellow; he was a good husband, and his children were very fond of
him. His domestic virtues, however, were sadly lost on Fernhurst, who
looked on him as a general buffoon, a hopeless ass. His class-room was
considered a sort of Y.M.C.A. entertainment hall, where there was
singing and dancing, and a mild check on excessive rioting.

At the beginning of the new term the Chief announced that in the upper
school one hour every day would be devoted to the study of either
French, maths or Latin. Each boy would choose his subject. Mr Reddon
would superintend the maths, Mr Trundle the French; for Latin each boy
would go to his own form master. To the hard-working, who had prizes
before their eyes, this scheme presented few attractions; as scholars it
would not be to their advantage to miss any classical hours, and French
was useless in scholarships. Macdonald, when he took down the names of
those who were to do Latin, found all those in front staying with him,
and all those behind going elsewhere. Macdonald laughed up his sleeve.

Indeed Trundle's class-room was filled with the most arrant collection
of frauds that have ever sat together this side of the Inferno. It was
largely a School House gathering. Lovelace was there; Hunter, Mansell,
Gordon, Archie and Collins. Christy's house supplied Dyke, a fine
footballer