ecome a prefect and learned by experience that the ruler's task is not
always the easiest and most enjoyable, he had always adopted the
natural attitude to masters. A 'crusher' was just a person whom, if
possible, one ragged. If he could hold his own, well and good: if not,
he merited contempt, not mercy, and the more he was ragged the better
it would be for the world at large. But when Martin discovered from
his own experience that to be ragged is torture, he began to regard the
doings and sufferings of the masters in a different light. It suddenly
struck him, with all the vivid effect of a surprise, that these people
were human beings of like passions with himself.

Following quickly on that discovery came the recognition of the fact
that Finney was being ragged. Reginald Finney, B.A., had not left
Oxford for more than two years, but he had bravely married, and now he
lived in a tiny cottage some distance from the school. Every day he
bicycled in to take the Upper Fourth, Classical, and to devote
occasional hours to the Upper Sixth. In time, of course, he would
become a Sixth form master, for he had excellent degrees--two firsts
and a 'mention' in the Ireland scholarship. He had lingered at Oxford
with a view to a fellowship, but nothing turned up: at last he had been
compelled by economic pressure to take the position offered him at
Elfrey.

Nothing could have been more disastrous. For twenty years the Upper
Fourth had passed a somnolent existence under the direction of an
amiable and unassuming cleric. Much to the general disgust the dear
old man had, after a severe attack of pneumonia, resigned. In twenty
years, as was only natural, the Upper Fourth had become an institution:
terms and times continued to change, but the Upper Fourth did nothing
of the kind. Fourth-formers came and went in scores, but their
successors always managed to keep up the traditions of their
inheritance with spirit and success. There would be four or five
clever and energetic children, people rising rapidly to the Fifth,
Sixth, and university scholarships; then there would be eight or ten
inky and unambitious persons who would never get beyond the Fifth. And
lastly there would be four or five monsters of seventeen or eighteen
who were engaged in getting the greatest possible enjoyment out of
their last year at school. Good athletes as a rule, they were popular
in their house and merely stayed on till the fatal day of
supera