read
that St. James' had won more open scholarships at the Universities than
some North-country grammar school; but at the same time he was consoled
in the event of defeat by pride in the endurance of his school through
so many years of English History.

It was about this time that Michael saw in a second-hand shop a print of
the tower of St. Mary's College, Oxford. It was an old print and the
people small as emmets, who thronged the base of that slim and lovely
tower, were dressed in a bygone fashion that very much appealed to
Michael. This print gave him the same thrill he experienced in listening
to Mr. Neech's reminiscences or in reading Don Quixote or in poring over
the inscriptions of famous Jacobeans. Michael had already taken it as an
axiom that one day he would go to Oxford, and now he made up his mind
he would go to St. Mary's College. At this moment people were hurrying
past that tower, even as they hurried in this grey print and even as
Michael himself would one day hurry. Meanwhile, he was enjoying the
Shell and Mr. Neech's eccentricities and the prospect of winning the
Junior Form Cricket Shield, a victory in which Michael would participate
as scorer for the Shell.

Summer suns shone down upon the green playground of St. James' rippling
with flannelled forms. The radiant air was filled with merry cries, with
the sounds of bat and ball, with boyhood in action. In the great red
mass of the school buildings the golden clock moved on through each
day's breathless hour of cricket. The Junior Shield was won by the
Shell, and the proud victors, after a desperate argument with Mr. Neech,
actually persuaded him to take his place in the commemorative
photograph. School broke up and the summer holidays began.

Chapter II: _The Quadruple Intrigue_

Michael, although Stella was more of a tie than a companion, was shocked
to hear that she would not accompany Miss Carthew and himself to
Eastbourne for the summer holidays. He heard with a recurrence of the
slight jealousy he had always felt of Stella that, though she was not
yet eleven years old, she was going to Germany to live in a German
family and study music. To Michael this step seemed a device to spoil
Stella beyond the limits of toleration, and he thought with how many new
affectations Stella would return to her native land. Moreover, why
should Stella have all the excitement of going abroad and living abroad
while her brother plodded to school in dul