h trooped out. Betteridge rushed across the courts to
Trundle's class-room. For a second he listened outside, then a great
idea struck him. There was still half-an-hour left. Madly he tore up to
the dormitories. Luckily they were not locked. Five minutes later he
appeared before Mr Henry Trundle entirely changed. He had on a very
light brown suit, a pair of check spats, a rainbow-coloured waistcoat, a
heliotrope bow tie; a bowler was balanced on his head at an angle of
forty-five degrees, a camera was slung round his neck, in his hand he
had a notebook and pencil.

"Mr Trundle, I believe," he said. "I am the reporter of _The Fernhurst
Gazette_. We have received a wire that there has been a great pro-Oxford
demonstration in here, and we want to get an account of it in the stop
press news before our sister journal, _The Western Evening Transcript_.
Can you give me some notes?"

As he stopped, the set, that had remained spellbound, burst into a
hilarious shriek of joy. Everyone heard it; even Claremont woke up and
asked what it was. Arthur, the school _custos_, talks of it to this day.

And at this point the Chief comes into the story. He was showing the
parents in question round the studies when he heard an uproar proceeding
from somewhere near the cloisters. He excused himself from the parents,
ran downstairs, and tracked the noise to Trundle's class-room. He
entered. Never before had he seen disorder on such a generous scale. He
looked round.

"Mr Trundle--er--what er--set is this?"

"The extra French set, Headmaster."

The Chief half smiled. He walked out without another word.

Next term there was no extra French set.

The ragging of Trundle, however, was merely regarded relaxation from the
serious business of life. In an Easter term football is the only thing
that any respectable man will really worry about. And Gordon, judged on
these grounds, and his friends with him, would most certainly pass into
the most select society circle. The Thirds this year was a terribly
perplexing problem. Simonds had not taken enough trouble with his
juniors the term before. This term he was working hard enough, but it
was a bit late in the day to begin. On the first Saturday of the term a
scratch side took sixty-five points off the prospective Thirds side.

"If you play as badly as that on the day you'll lose by forty points,"
growled Simonds, "and you'll damned well deserve a beating, too."

"Curse the man," muttered Lovela