s a period of Arcadian
simplicity, a golden age. In his second term Michael after an
inconspicuous position in the honest heart of the list was not moved up,
for which he was very glad, as the man who took the Upper Third was by
reputation a dull driver without any of the amenities by which Foxy
Braxted seasoned scholastic life.

One morning, when the Lower Third had been pleasantly dissolved in
laughter by Foxy's caustic jokes at the expense of a boy who had
pronounced the Hebrides as a dissyllable, following a hazardous guess
that the capital of New South Wales was New York, the door of the
class-room opened abruptly and Dr. Brownjohn the Headmaster sailed in.

"Is there a boy called Fane in this class?" he demanded deeply.

The laughter had died away when the tip of Dr. Brownjohn's nose
glistened round the edge of the door, and in the deadly silence Michael
felt himself withering away.

"Oh, yes," said Mr. Braxted, cheerfully indicating Michael with his long
forefinger.

"Tell him to pack up his books and go to Mr. Spivey in the Hall. I'll
see him there," rumbled Dr. Brownjohn as, after transfixing the Lower
Third with a glance of the most intense ferocity, he swung round and
left the room, slamming the door behind him.

"You'd better take what you're doing to Mr. Spivey," said Mr. Braxted in
his throatiest voice, "and tell him with my compliments you're an idle
young rascal. You can get your books at one o'clock."

Michael gathered together pens and paper, and left his desk in the Lower
Third.

"Good-bye, sir," he said as he went away, for he knew Foxy Braxted
really rather liked him.

"Good-bye," cackled his late form-master.

The Lower Third followed his exit from their midst with an united grin
of farewell, and Michael was presently interviewing Mr. Spivey in the
Hall. He realized that he was now a member of that assorted Purgatory,
the Special, doomed to work there for a term of days or weeks and after
this period of intensive culture to be planted out in a higher form
beyond the ordinary mechanics of promotion. Mostly in the Special class
Michael worshipped the two gods [Greek: ei] and [Greek: ean],
and his whole life was devoted to the mastery of Greek conditional
sentences in their honour.

The Special form at St. James' never consisted of more than fourteen or
fifteen boys, all of whom were taught individually, and none of whom
knew when they would be called away. The Special was well called
P