ys
went into training a week before the event, so as to enjoy it more. But
the real triumph was the hot punch. As soon as dessert had begun the old
boys trooped out, and brought in a huge steaming bowl of punch, from
which they filled all the glasses. Gordon did not like it much. It
seemed very hot and strong. But everyone else seemed to. Jeffries got a
little excited.

Then speeches followed. The Chief proposed the fortune of the House,
Clarke answered him. There was the usual applause and clapping. But the
real event was Lovelace's speech. It had been a year of great success.
The Three Cock had been lost by only a very small margin. The Two Cock
had been won in a walk-over, and the Thirds by two points. The Senior
Cricket and the Sports Cup had also been won. It was very nearly a
record year. Lovelace was received with terrific applause; he
congratulated the House on its performance; he mentioned individual
names; each was the signal for a roar of cheering; and then, at the end,
he said:

"And now I have a message to the House from the old boys. Let us have
the Three Cock Cup back again on the School House sideboard. It is the
place where it should be, and that's the place where we are going to put
it! Gentlemen, The Three Cock!"

Amid a deafening noise the toast was drunk, and a voice from the back
yelled out: "Three cheers for Lovelace!" His health, too, was drunk, and
they sang _For he's a Jolly Good Fellow_.

After this all else seemed tame. Ferguson made a speech that was meant
to be very funny, but rather missed fire. He had read _Dorian Gray_ the
whole of the evening before, underlining appropriate aphorisms. But to
the average boy Oscar Wilde is (rather luckily perhaps) a little too
advanced. The evening finished with _Auld Lang Syne_. Everyone stood on
the table and roared himself hoarse. The score in damage was twenty
plates broken beyond repair, sixteen punch glasses in fragments,
fourteen cracked plates, two broken gas mantles. When the revellers had
departed the hall looked rather gloomy, as probably Nero's did when his
guests fled after the murder of Britannicus.

Next morning there was early service for communicants. But the School
House was entirely pagan. Hardly a man went. On Sunday there was a great
feed in Study 16. Somehow or other ten people got packed into as many
square feet of room. Gordon was there; and Mansell, of course; Collins
came to act as general clown; Fitzroy, a small friend of