freedom in the choice of one's friends, and Michael no
longer felt bound to restrict his intimacy to the twin Macalisters and
Norton. Sometimes in the 'quarter' (as the break was now called) Michael
would stand on the top of the steps that led down from the great red
building into the school-ground. From this point he would survey the
huge green field with its archipelago of countless boys. He would think
how few of their names he knew and from what distances many of them
travelled each morning to school. He could wander among them by himself
and not one would turn a curious head. He was at liberty even to stare
at a few great ones whom athletic prowess had endowed already with
legendary divinity, so that among small boys tales were told of their
daring and their immortality gradually woven into the folk-lore of St.
James'. Sometimes a member of the first fifteen would speak to Michael
on a matter of athletic business.

"What's your name?"

"Fane," Michael would answer, hoping the while that his contemporaries
might be passing and see this colloquy between a man and a god.

"Oh, yes," the hero would carelessly continue, "I've got you down
already. Mind you turn up to Little Side at 1.45 sharp."

Little Side was the football division that included the smallest third
of the school. Sometimes the hero would ask another question, as:

"Do you know a kid called Smith P.L.?"

And Michael with happy blushes would be able to point out Smith P.L. to
the great figure.

Michael played football on Little Side with great regularity, rushing
home to dinner and rushing off again to change and be in the field by a
quarter to two. He could run very fast and for that reason the lords of
Little Side made him play forward, a position for which the slightness
of his body made him particularly unsuited. One day, however, he managed
to intercept a pass, to outwit a three-quarter, to dodge the full-back
and to score a try, plumb between the posts. Luckily one of the heroes
had strolled down from Pelion that afternoon to criticize Little Side
and Michael was promoted from the scrum to play three-quarter back on
the left wing, in which position he really enjoyed football very much
indeed.

It fell out that year that the St. James' fifteen was the most
invincible ever known in the school's history, and every Saturday
afternoon, when there was a home match, Michael in rain or wind or pale
autumnal sunlight would take up his position in th