moury and the gym. after tea without a
pass. But it was in hall that the new position meant most.

While the rest of the house had to stay in their studies and make some
pretence of work, he would wander indolently down the passage and pay
calls. When he paused outside a study he heard the invariable sound of a
novel flying into the waste-paper basket, of a paper being shoved under
the table, or a cake being relegated to the window-seat. Then he came
in.

A curse always greeted him.

"Oh, damn you, Caruthers, I thought it was a prefect. Foster, hoist out
that cake; we were just having a meal."

He now had the freedom of studies that had before been to him as holy
places. Where once Clarke had dealt out justice with a heavy hand,
Tester and he sat before the fire discussing books and life. In the
games study, where once he trembled before the rage of Lovelace major,
he sat with Carter in hall preparing Thucydides. Steps would sound down
the passage, a knock on the door.

"Come in," bawled Carter.

"Please, Carter, may I speak to Smith?" a nervous voice would say. No
one could talk without leave from a prefect during hall.

"Yes; and shut the outer door," Carter answered, without looking round.
The prefectorial dignity seemed in a way to descend on Gordon; just then
life was very good. But there were times when he would feel an
uncontrollable impatience with the regime under which he lived. One of
these was on the second Sunday of term. It was Rogers' turn to preach,
and, as always, Gordon prepared himself for a twenty minutes' sleep till
the outburst of egoistic rhetoric was spent. But this time, about
half-way through, a few phrases floated through his mist of dreams and
caught his attention. Rogers was talking about the impending
confirmation service. With one hand on the lectern and the other
brandishing his pince-nez, as was his custom when he intended to be more
than usually impressive, he began the really vital part of the sermon.

"In the holidays there appeared as, I am sorry to say, I expect some of
you saw, a book pretending to deal with life at one of our largest
Public Schools. I say, pretending, because the book contains hardly a
word of truth. The writer says that the boys are callous about religious
questions and discuss matters which only grown-up people should mention
in the privacy of their own studies, and still more serious, the purport
of the book was to attack not only the boys but even the