n as Elfrey, has its
traditional rows, its stories of rags perpetrated on a colossal scale
by the heroes of old: but the modern schoolboy finds that, like fights,
they don't happen. Martin's life moved calmly on and its monotony was
only broken by sundry interludes, painful or humorous, with masters or
prefects. Still, ragging old Barmy was tame enough and only once was
he involved in a genuine row, an affair that counted and was history
for several years. Partly because it was his only rag, and partly
because it chanced to occur in his first term, while he was still very
impressionable, the memory remained with him clearly and for ever. It
is true also that he played a part in the drama and even was
responsible for its name, so naturally he remembered that notable
December night with its comradeship and perils and glorious achievement.

The end of term, so exasperating to the harried teacher, brings
exhilaration to the taught. As Christmas approached Martin found
prefectorial discipline slackening and, though exams might mean harder
work in school, there was in the house a very agreeable relaxation of
tension. Even games were taken less seriously, and one or two of the
more audacious spirits actually cut without detection. But just as
Berney's began to slacken their reins, Randall's, the neighbouring
house, became more vigorous than usual: for Randall's were in the final
of the "footer pot."

Berney's always objected to Randall's. This animosity might have been
accounted for by the mere fact of neighbourship, but there was more in
it than that. As was Athens to Sparta, so was Berney's house to
Randall's. Berney's stood always for an easy-going tolerance and,
though, for instance, it was not a particularly well-dressed house, it
left its nuts in peace. In all its pursuits it was either brilliant or
ineffectual, and, if it did anything at all, it did it beautifully:
both in games and work it was a house of individuals. A typical
batsman from Berney's would make three divine, soul-satisfying cuts and
be caught in attempting an impossible fourth: Berney's was never
thorough and never took defeat to heart.

Randall's, on the other hand, had no nuts and suspected with Draconian
severity the faintest traces of nuttishness. The average member of the
house was tall and lumpy and sallow, badly dressed and with no grease
to his hair. It was a standing joke with the school that Randall's
youths owed their yellow f