john loomed on his return journey, it
was necessary to evade his savage glance by creeping round the great
cast of the Antinous that fronted the corridor. On one of these
occasions Michael in his nervousness shook the statue and an insecurely
dependent fig-leaf fell with a crash on to the floor. Michael nearly
flung himself over the well of the main staircase in horror, but deaf
Dr. Brownjohn swung past into a gloom beyond, and presently Michael was
relieved by the grinning face of a compatriot beckoning permission to
re-enter the class-room. Safely inside, the fall of the fig-leaf was
made out by Michael to be an act of deliberate daring on his part, and
when at one o'clock the form rushed out to verify the boast, his
position was tremendously enhanced. The news flew round the school, and
several senior boys were observed in conversation with Michael, so that
he was able to swagger considerably. Also he turned up his trousers a
full two inches higher and parted his hair on the right-hand side, a
mode which had long attracted his ambition.

Now, indeed, were Michael and Alan in the zenith of boyhood's glory. No
longer did they creep diffidently down the corridors; no longer did they
dread to run the gauntlet of a Modern class lined up on either side to
await the form-master's appearance. If some louts in the Modern Fourth
dared to push them from side to side, as they went by, Michael and Alan
would begin to fight and would shout, 'You stinking Modern beasts!
Classics to the rescue!' To their rescue would pour the heroes of the
Upper Fourth A. Down went the Modern textbooks of Chemistry and Physics,
and ignominiously were they hacked along the corridor. Doubled up by a
swinging blow from a bag stood the leader of the Moderns, grunting and
gasping in his windless agony. Back to the serenity of Virgilian airs
went the Upper Fourth A, with Michael and Alan arm in arm amid their
escort, and most dejectedly did the Modern cads gather up their
scientific textbooks; but during the 'quarter' great was the battle
waged on the 'gravel'--that haunt of thumb-biting, acrimonious and
uneasy factions. Michael and Alan were not yet troubled with the fevers
of adolescence. They were cool and clear and joyous as the mountain
torrent: for them life was a crystal of laughter, many-faceted to
adventure. Theirs was now that sexless interlude before the Eton collar
gave way to the 'stick up' and before the Eton jacket, trim and jaunty,
was dis