's; requiring
skill and gentleness and firmness, and I know not what other rare
qualities."

"Which doesn't he wish he may get!" said Tom, laughing; "at any rate
he hasn't got them yet, or he wouldn't have been such a flat[34] as to
let Jack Raggles go in, out of his turn."

[34] #Flat#: fool.

"Ah, the Doctor never would have done that," said Arthur, demurely.
"Tom, you've a great deal to learn yet in the art of ruling."

"Well, I wish you'd tell the Doctor so, then, and get him to let me
stop till I'm twenty. I don't want to leave, I'm sure."

"What a sight it is," broke in the master, "the Doctor as a ruler!
Perhaps ours is the only little corner in the British Empire which is
thoroughly, wisely, and strongly ruled just now. I'm more and more
thankful every day of my life that I came here to be under him."

"So am I, I'm sure," said Tom; " and more and more sorry that I've got
to leave."

"Every place and thing one sees here reminds one of some wise act of
his," went on the master. "This island now--you remember the time,
Brown, when it was first laid out in small gardens, and cultivated by
frost-bitten fags in February and March?"

"Of course I do," said Tom; "didn't I hate spending two hours in the
afternoon grubbing in the tough dirt with the stump of a fives'-bat?
But turf-cart[35] was good fun enough."

[35] #Turf-cart#: Tom, with the other boys, used to decorate
the "island" in the school-grounds with turf and flowers,
which they stole "out of all the gardens in Rugby for the
Easter show." They took the "turf-cart" for this purpose. The
"island," by the way, no longer exists.

"I dare say it was, but it was always leading to fights with the
townspeople; and then the stealing flowers out of all the gardens in
Rugby for the Easter show was abominable."

"Well, so it was," said Tom, looking down, "but we fags couldn't help
ourselves. But what has that to do with the Doctor's ruling?"

"A great deal, I think," said the master; "what brought island-fagging
to an end?"

"Why, the Easter speeches were put off till midsummer," said Tom, "and
the sixth had gymnastic poles put up here."

"Well, and who changed the time of the speeches, and put the idea of
gymnastic poles into the heads of their worships,[36] the sixth form?"
said the master.

[36] #Worships#: here, mock titles of honor.

"The Doctor, I suppose," said Tom. " I never thought of that."

"Of course you didn'