The Head of Kay's

on the last evening of term, there was only a single morning before the summer holidays, and that morning was occupied with the prize-giving. The school assembled at ten o'c

anour was far from jovial. It lacked that rollicking bonhomie which we like to see in headmasters on prize-day. It was evident to the most casual observer that the a

ishop of Rumtifoo (who had been selected this year to distribute the prizes) had worked off his seventy minutes' speech (inaudible, of course, as usual), and was feeling m

two years now, and there's always been this rotting about in the grounds before we start. Nobody's likely to turn u

talk to him. He had not seen him after the concert, and he thought it would be interesting to k

not muc

on of the interview amused him. "But he couldn't do anything. O

hat you liked for an encore. How were you to know the gallery would go off like that? You aren

g," sai

you come off ag

tayed for

said anything to

next term. It'll be some

ff to take his pl

over the journey. Then, again, the heat always happens to be particularly oppressive on that day. Snow may have fallen on the day before, but d

consolation which buoyed up the spirits of Eckleton was the reflection that in a short space of time, when the important-looking gentleman in uniform who had come to meet them had said all he wanted to say on the subject of rules and regulations, they would be like that too. Happy thought!

ct to military discipline, and the rules for the conduct of troops quartered in the Aldershot district-but also as members of a pu

to think he was telling them something fresh. T

ton marched off wearily, b

s-m

y d

tion in private life, but in public he will talk about his beastly military regulations. You can't stop him. It's a perfect mania with him. Now, I believe-that's

made no

dge of the ins and outs of the place. Kennedy was quite willing to take him as his guide. He was full of information. Kennedy was surprised to see what a number of men from the oth

. See that chap over there? He came here last year. He'd never been before, and one of the things he didn't know was that Cove Reservoir's only about three feet deep round the sides. He took a running

id Kennedy. "I should have

m the bonded warehouse of his knowledge. Nothing changes at ca

o have to do a three hours' field-day before brekker. We used to have coffee before it, and nothing else till it was over. By Jove, you felt you'd had enough of it before you got back. This is Laffan's Plain. The worst of Laffan's Plain is that you get to know it too well. You get

wn the line Kay's had assembled. The Kay contingent were under Wayburn, a good sort, as far as he himself was concerned, but too weak to handle a mob like Kay's.

e rowdiest house in the school, and the cream of its rowdy members had come to camp. There was Walton, for one, a perfect specimen of the public school man at hi

of thought-asked Jimmy Silver, as they went into their ten

. Still, I've known cases. You sometimes get one tent mobbing another. They loose the ropes, you know. Low trick, I think. I

g from Kay's here. I was wondering if they'd get an

hey'd get beans if they did anything in that line. I remember once there was a tent which made itself objectionable, and it got raided in the night by a sort of vigilance committee from the other schools, and the chaps in it got the dickens of a time. None of them e

den volley of subdued shouts came fro

it,

to it,

re

lve

-s

ruff voice inquiring with simple directness

"Did you hear that? I

was in it, wh

find out about it now, though. I'll ask him tomorrow, i

d ni

n ruminating over the incident in his us

Wren?"

mured Silve

n?" repeat

'l' beast…. Kay's….

igned in Bla