But the Iron Age in which we live has been responsible for a further addition to the scholastic aristocracy--the motor expert. A boy who can claim to have driven a Rolls-Royce at fifty miles an hour is accorded a place above the salt by popular acclamation. No one with any claim to social distinction can afford to admit ignorance upon such matters as high-tension magnetos and rotary valves. The humblest fag can tell at a glance whether a passing vehicle is a Wolseley or a Delaunay Belleville. Science masters, for years a despised--or at the best a tolerated--race, now achieve a degree of popularity and respect hitherto only attainable by Old Blues, because they understand induced currents and the mysteries of internal combustion. Most curious portent of all, a boy in the Lower School, who cannot be trusted to work out a sum in simple arithmetic without perpetrating several gross errors, and to whom physics and chemistry, as such, are a sealed book entitled "Stinks," will solve in his head, readily and correctly, such problems as relate to petrol-mileage or the ratio of gear-wheels, and remedy quite readily and skilfully the ticklish troubles that arise from faulty timing-wheels and short circuits. It was upon these qualifications that Philip originally obtained admission to the parliament which perennially fugged and argued around the fire on winter evenings. It was true that he had never been fined for exceeding the speed limit in Hyde Park, like Ashley major, nor been run into in the Ripley Road, like Master Crump; but his technical knowledge was very complete for a boy of his age; and being an admirable draughtsman, he could elucidate with paper and pencil mysteries which both he and his audience realised could not be explained by the English language. In time, too, he became a fair athlete. Cricket he hated, but he developed into a sturdy though clumsy forward at football; and his boxing showed promise. His speciality was the strength of his wrist and forearm. On gala nights, when the prefects had been entertaining a guest at tea,--an old boy or a junior master,--Philip, then a lusty fag rising sixteen, was frequently summoned before the quality, to give his celebrated exhibition of poker-bending.