lackboard, or to consume food. Barmy's room was
renowned as a resort for picnics. Biscuits were popular in winter, but
in summer there was a special line in fruit. Once a daring individual
threw a biscuit at Barmy's head and hit him, whereupon he had to carry
to his housemaster a note which began:

"DEAR RANDALL,--Morgan struck me with a macaroon."

The conjunction of the words 'strike' and 'macaroon' so pleased Mr
Randall that he omitted to deal with Morgan.

All the obvious things were done to Barmy by one or other of his
classes. Mice were brought into form and released, and once a grass
snake. He found a hedgehog in his mortar-board. Barmy had an idea
that fifty lines formed a long imposition and he used to whine out:

"Um, ah, boy, I'll give you a long day's work. Take fifty lines."

He would enter the imposition in a note-book which he left in his
unlocked desk, and in the morning he would find 'shown up' written
against it in his own handwriting. After a long day of wheezing and
grumbling about his shattered nerves Barmy would be seen mounting his
aged bicycle with fixed wheel and pedalling laboriously to the villa
and the chattering wife and the gaunt, unwedded daughters. Yet perhaps
he was not altogether unhappy, for, if a master is to be ragged, he may
as well sink to the depths: the tragedy of the defenceless dotard has
less pathos than the suffering of the young man with ideals, whose
burning desire to teach well and to succeed is thwarted by just the
slightest lack of that presence and authority which make the master.

Undoubtedly, however, Barmy could be hurt, and Martin was not old
enough to understand the consummate brutality of the proceedings in
that dismal room. Like all young schoolboys, Martin regarded a master
or crusher as a natural foe, a person with whom truceless war is waged.
If he is fool enough to let himself be ragged, that is his look-out: he
has all the resources of punishment on his side and if he cannot use
them he deserves no mercy. So Martin worked off his vitality in
ragging, and, being of an ingenious turn of mind, became noted for the
improvisation of new japes. He was patronised by the bloods of the
form and enjoyed himself hugely: without realising the nature and
results of his conduct, he even lay awake at nights devising new and
exquisite methods for completing the destruction of Barmy's nervous
system.

V

Every school, even so modern a foundatio