masters' common room, which had
from time immemorial been the possession of the Sixth Form tutor, and in
the evenings when Gordon used to have his prose corrected Finnemore
would often ask him to stay behind and have some coffee. Then the two
would talk about poetry and art and life till the broken bell rang out
its cracked imperious summons. Finnemore had once published a small book
of verses, a copy of which he gave to Gordon. They had in them all the
frail pathos of a wasted career; most of them were songs of spurned
affection, and inside was the quotation: "_Scribere jussit amor_."

"When I look at that book," said Finnemore to Gordon, "I can't associate
myself with the author, I seem to have quite outgrown him. And as I
recall the verses I say to myself, 'Poor fellow, life was hard to you,'
and I wonder if he really was myself."

With him Gordon saw life from a different angle. He presented the
spectacle of failure, and it rather sobered Gordon's wild enthusiasm, at
times, to feel himself so close to anything so bitterly poignant. But
the hour of youth's domination, even if it be but an hour, is too full
of excitement and confidence to be overclouded by doubts for very long.
Usually Gordon saw in him a pathetic shadow whom he patronised. He did
not realise that it was what he himself might become.

Through the long tedious hours in the shadowy class-room Gordon dreamed
of wonderful successes, and let others pass him by in the rush for
promotion. He began to think that prizes and form lists were not worth
worrying about; he said a classical education had such a narrowing
effect on character. We can always produce arguments to back up an
inclination if we want to. And in Finnemore there was no force to stir
anyone to do what they did not want.

Only once a day was Gordon at all industrious, and that was when the
Chief took the Lower and Upper Sixth Form combined in Horace and
Thucydides.

For the Chief Gordon always worked; not, it is true, with any real
measure of success, for he had rather got out of the habit of grinding
at the classics, but at any rate with energy. And during these hours he
began to perceive vaguely what a clear-sighted, unprejudiced mind the
Chief had. To the boy in the Fourth and Fifth forms any headmaster must
appear not so much a living person as the emblem of authority, the final
dispenser of justice, the hard, analytical sifter of evidence, "coldly
sublime, intolerably just." Gordon ha