There were wild boxing bouts which went on in pitch darkness, after the combatants had trampled on the candle. There was one evening when I came on a boy lying flat on his back on the floor hammering the keys of the piano, our new piano, with the heels of his boots. The tuner told me afterwards that he broke seventeen strings. But we settled down by degrees. We had lectures every afternoon which were supposed to be--I think actually were--of an educative kind. Attendance at these lectures was compulsory. The boys were paraded and marched to the club. As we had not space in our lecture room for more than half our members, we had one set of boys on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, another on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Each lecturer delivered himself twice. The business of keeping up a supply of lectures was not so difficult as we expected. Officers were very kind and offered us the most amazing collection of subjects. The secretary of many a literary society at home would be envious of our list. We accepted every offer we got, no matter how inappropriate the subject seemed to be. It was impossible to tell beforehand which lectures would be popular and which would fail. Military subjects were of course common. We had "The Navy" with lantern slides. M. gave that lecture, but all his best slides were banned by the censor, for fear, I suppose, that we might have a German spy among us and that he would telegraph to Berlin a description of a light cruiser if M. exhibited one upon the screen. We had "Men who have won the V.C." with lantern slides. That was, as was expected, a success. But we also had "Napoleon's Campaigns" by a Cambridge professor of history, illustrated by nothing better than a few maps drawn on a blackboard. To our amazement that was immensely popular. We had "How an Army is fed," by an A.S.C. officer, the only lecture which produced a vigorous discussion afterwards. But we did not confine ourselves to military subjects. We had lectures on morals, which were sometimes a little confusing. One lecturer, I remember, starting from the fact that the boys had misstated their ages to the recruiting officers when they enlisted, hammered home the fact that all lies are disgraceful, and therefore our boys ought to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Another lecturer, a month later, starting from the same fact, took the line that it was possible to be _splendide mendax_, and that we had good reason to be extremely proud all our lives of the lie told in the recruiting office.