... Days of the classics are over. Still, you fought
well.... Third line of defence--_ad triarios_.... I remember a bit of my
classics."

Gordon was borne out on the stream past the matron's room to the end of
the passage, and the rest of Ferrers's speech was lost.

From this day the Stoics underwent a complete change. The whole nature
of the society was altered. Ferrers was so absolutely different from
anything that a master had appeared to be from time immemorial. He was
essentially of the new generation, an iconoclast, a follower of Brooke
and Gilbert Cannan, heedless of tradition, probing the root of
everything. At the end of the term Christy resigned his presidency. He
could not keep pace with the whirlwind Ferrers.

"You know, Caruthers," said Tester in second hall, "whatever our
personal feelings may be, we have got to allow that this man Ferrers has
got something in him."

"Something! Why, I thought him simply glorious. Here he is bursting in
on the prude conventionality of Fernhurst full of new ideas, smashing up
the things that have been accepted unquestionably for years. By Jove,
the rest of the staff must hate him."

"There was a thing by him in the _A.M.A._ the other day that caused
considerable annoyance, I believe. I didn't read the thing myself, but I
heard 'the Bull' saying it was disgraceful that a Fernhurst master
should be allowed to say such things. I suppose he said something
against games."

"Well, damn it all, if he did, he is in the wrong. Games are absolutely
necessary. What on earth would the country be like without them?"

"A damned sight better, I should think."

"Oh, don't be an ass. Just look at the fellows who don't play games,
Rudd and Co. What wrecks they are! Utterly useless. We could do
perfectly well without them. Could not we now?"

At this point Betteridge strolled in very leisurely. Authority had made
him a dignified person. The days of ragging Trundle seemed very distant.
He did not go about with Mansell so much now. He was more often with
Carter and Harding.

"Betteridge, come in and sit down," said Tester; "we were arguing on the
value of games. Don't you agree with me that it's about time a man like
Ferrers made a sensible attack on them?"

"Yes; though I doubt if Ferrers is quite the man to do it. He is such a
revolutionary. He would want to smash everything at once. A gradual
change is what is needed. I look at it like this. Games are all right in
themselves. A