been known to touch any of the
first-night soup; Gordon had often wondered what happened to it. There
was much of it, and all wasted.

The Chief greeted them with his invariable fluttering smile.

"I suppose you know what I want you for? Kitchener called up his
reserves, so I have had to call up mine. None of you would, I think, in
the ordinary course of events have become prefects this term. But as it
is, I am sure you will all do well; and remember that being a prefect
does not merely consist in the privilege of being late for breakfast.
Some of you, who may very likely have views of your own on certain
subjects, must try and make them conform with mine. We must all try to
work together, and I am always ready to give any of you advice if I am
able to, and of course----"

At this moment there came the discordant sounds that proclaimed the
arrival of the last train from town. Gordon could imagine some wretched
new boy huddled underneath the stairs, ignorant and timid.

Rudd burst in with a health certificate and outside came the babble of
voices. "I must go and see Chief ... Health certificate ... Confirmation
classes ... Going to specialise in stinks."

It was clear that the Chief was to have a hard time for the next twenty
minutes interviewing all these candidates for a satisfactory division of
labour.

"Well, I think that is all just now, thank you."

He gave them a nod of dismissal. They filed out into the passage, black
with its crowd of clamouring applicants.

It was not until the next day, however, that Gordon fully realised the
change that had come over Fernhurst. Nearly all the bloods had left.
Gregory was still there, but he had sent his papers in, and expected to
be gazetted in a week or so, and of the Fifteen of the year before he
was the only remaining colour. Two members of the Second Fifteen
remained: one because he was only seventeen, the other, Akerman's
younger brother, because he was going to be a medical student and was
not allowed to take a commission by the War Office.

The staff also had undergone several changes. Ferrers was practically
the only master under thirty. The rest had all taken commissions, and
their places were filled by grey-beards and bald-heads, long since past
their prime. It was a case of extreme youth face to face with extreme
age.

"There will be some fun this term," prophesied Archie Fletcher, for whom
the immediate future stretched out into a long series of colos