ish men."

"The discipline and reliance on one another which it teaches is so
valuable, I think," went on the master, "it ought to be such an
unselfish game. It merges the individual in the eleven; he doesn't play
that he may win, but that his side may."

"That's very true," said Tom, "and that's why football and cricket, now
one comes to think of it, are such much better games than fives' or
hare-and-hounds, or any others where the object is to come in first or
to win for oneself, and not that one's side may win."

"And then the Captain of the eleven!" said the master, "what a post is
his in our School-world! almost as hard as the Doctor's; requiring skill
and gentleness and firmness, and I know not what other rare qualities."

"Which don'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 to-night as to
let Jack Raggles go in out of his turn."

"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 of 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--you remember the time, Brown,
when it was 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
afternoons grubbing in the tough dirt with the stump of a fives'-bat?
But turf-cart was good fun enough."

"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 the gymnastic poles