eather and the
Fifteen's chances.

On his way back to the studies he felt an arm laid in his. He shivered
and turned round, half expecting to see Emmie's flushed, exciting face
peering up at him. He almost sighed with relief when he found it was
Tester.

"Look here, just come for a stroll round the courts. The rain's stopped.
I want to talk to you."

They wandered out under the lindens.

"I suppose you did go out last night, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"What on earth did you do it for?"

"I am sick of the whole affair," Gordon said petulantly. "Rudd called
the lot of us funks, so----"

"I know that tale quite well," Tester broke in. "I want to know why you
went out. At least I don't mean that. I mean to tell you why you went
out, because I don't think you know yourself. You have made an awful
fool of yourself. You have run the risk of getting sacked, merely
because you wanted to be talked about."

"I didn't. I went because I was jolly well not going to have Rudd
calling me a funk."

"Comes to the same thing in the end, doesn't it? You did not want to
play second fiddle; you didn't want Rudd to appear to have scored. You
wanted to be the central figure. Much the same, isn't it? The love of
notoriety."

Gordon murmured something inaudible.

"And it is all so damned silly. You are running the risk of getting the
sack, and for nothing at all. I can understand quite well anyone being
drawn into anything dangerous by a strong emotion or feeling. It is
natural. Masters say we should curb our natures. I don't know if they
are right. That's neither here nor there. There was nothing natural in
what you did. It was merely rotten imbecility--your self-consciousness,
your fear of not seeming to have done the right thing. You can't go on
like this. I own that this term you have been more or less sane. The
last two terms I have often wondered what was going to happen to you.
You had no balance; you kept on doing silly little things so as to hold
the attention of a more stupid audience. This term you have stopped that
sort of rot. But what is the use of it going to be, if you go and do
things like this on the impulse of the moment, merely because you don't
want to look silly? You can't think how much more silly you look by
playing the ruddy ass during the small hours inside a stinking booth!
You can't afford to do that sort of thing. Your ambition is to be
captain of the House, and not a bad ambition either. But do you reali