tion and fealty; these, the gods, in a word,
deliver their injunction, transmit, in turn, what has been transmitted
to them, and invite their successors to receive it. To many how poignant
must be the reflection that the trust they are about to resign might
have been better administered! But to many there must come upon the
wings of those mighty, rushing choruses the assurance that the Power
which has upheld them in the past will continue to uphold them in the
future. In many--would one could say in all--is quickened, for the first
time, perhaps, a sense of what they owe to the Hill, the overwhelming
debt which never can be discharged.

Desmond sat beside Scaife. Scaife boasted that he could not tell "God
save the Queen" from "The Dead March in Saul." He confessed that the
concert bored him. Desmond, on the other hand, was always touched by
music, or, indeed, by anything appealing to an imagination which gilded
all things and persons. He was Scaife's friend, not only (as John
discovered) because Scaife had a will strong enough to desire and secure
that friendship, but because--a subtler reason--he had never yet seen
Scaife as he was, but always as he might have been.

Desmond told Scaife that he could not understand why John had bottled up
the fact that he was chosen to sing upon such an occasion. Scaife smiled
contemptuously.

"You never bottle up anything, Caesar," said he.

"Why should I? And why should he?"

"I expect he'll make an awful ass of himself."

"Oh no, he won't," Desmond replied. "He's a clever fellow is Jonathan."

As he gave John his nickname, Desmond's charming voice softened. A boy
of less quick perceptions than Scaife would have divined that the
speaker liked John, liked him, perhaps, better than he knew. Scaife
frowned.

"There are several Old Harrovians," he said, indicating the seats
reserved for them. "It's queer to me that they come down for this
caterwauling."

Desmond glanced at him sharply, with a wrinkle between his eyebrows. For
the moment he looked as if he were short-sighted, as if he were trying
to define an image somewhat blurred, conscious that the image itself was
clear enough, that the fault lay in the obscurity of his own vision.

"They come down because they're keen," he replied. "My governor can't
leave his office, or he'd be here. I like to see 'em, don't you, Demon?"

"I could worry along without 'em," the Demon replied, half-smiling. "You
see," he added, with the b