“When we get licked tomorrow by half-a-dozen wickets,” said Jimmy Silver, tilting his chair until the back touched the wall, “don’t say I didn’t warn you. If you fellows take down what I say from time...

They turned, and began to walk towards the houses. Kennedy felt miserable. He never allowed himself to be put out, to any great extent, by his own worries, which, indeed, had not been very numerous up...

Blackburn’s took the field at three punctually on the following afternoon, to play out the last act of the final house-match. They were not without some small hope of victory, for curious things happe...

What might be described as a mixed reception awaited the players as they left the field. The pavilion and the parts about the pavilion rails were always packed on the last day of a final house-match, ...

With the best intentions in the world, however, a headmaster cannot make a row about a thing unless he is given a reasonable amount of time to make it in. The concert being on the last evening of term...

Wren and Billy Silver had fallen out over a question of space. It was Silver’s opinion that Wren’s nest ought to have been built a foot or two further to the left. He stated baldly that he had not roo...

The guard tent had disappeared. Private Jones’ bewildered eye, rolling in a fine frenzy from heaven to earth, and from earth to heaven, in search of the missing edifice, found it at last in a tangled ...

One of the things which make life on this planet more or less agreeable is the speed with which alarums, excursions, excitement, and rows generally, blow over. A nine-days’ wonder has to be a big busi...

“What!” shouted Kennedy. He sprang to his feet as if he had had an electric shock. Jimmy Silver, having satisfied his passion for the dramatic by the abruptness with which he had exploded his mine, no...

Breakfast on the following morning was a repetition of the dormitory ordeal. Kennedy walked to his place on Mr. Kay’s right, feeling that everyone was looking at him, as indeed they were. He understoo...

Curiously enough, it was shortly after this that the junior dayroom ceased almost entirely to trouble the head of the house. Not that they turned over new leaves, and modelled their conduct on that of...

“I’m very sorry,” he said, when he rejoined the shivering group, “but I’m afraid we shall have to call this match off. There seems to have been a mistake. None of my team are anywhere about. I’m awful...

Stating it broadly, fighters may be said to be divided into two classes⁠—those who are content to take two blows if they can give three in return, and those who prefer to receive as little punishment ...

But the step was not such a very long one after all. What it amounted to was simply this, that open rebellion ceased in Kay’s. When Kennedy put up the list on the notice-board for the third time, whic...

Fenn arrived at the theatre a quarter of an hour before the curtain rose. Going down a gloomy alley of the High Street, he found himself at the stage door, where he made inquiries of a depressed-looki...

Fenn was up first. Many years’ experience of being tackled at full speed on the football field had taught him how to fall. The stranger, whose football days, if he had ever had any, were long past, ha...

Nobody knows for certain the feelings of the camel when his proprietor placed that last straw on his back. The incident happened so long ago. If it had occurred in modern times, he would probably have...

After all he had gone through that night, it disturbed Fenn very little to find on the following morning that the professional cracksman had gone off with one of the cups in his study. Certainly, it w...

Wren did not quite know what to make of this. Why had not Fenn said a word to him? There were one or two prefects in the school whom he might have met even at such close quarters and yet have cherishe...

In these hustling times it is not always easy to get ten minutes’ conversation with an acquaintance in private. There was drill in the dinner hour next day for the corps, to which Kennedy had to go di...

“Thanks,” said Fenn. He stood twirling the cap round in his hand as Spencer closed the door. Then he threw it on to the table. He did not feel particularly disturbed at the thought of the interview th...

For the remaining weeks of the winter term, things went as smoothly in Kay’s as Kay would let them. That restless gentleman still continued to burst in on Kennedy from time to time with some sensation...

The chances of Kay’s in the inter-house Football Competition were not thought very much of by their rivals. Of late years each of the other houses had prayed to draw Kay’s for the first round, it bein...

There were certain houses at Eckleton which had, as it were, specialised in certain competitions. Thus, Gay’s, who never by any chance survived the first two rounds of the cricket and football housers...