I don't envy Askew his life at all. Boys are merciless devils when they find they have a master in their power. It is all very well to say that a man must have the whip-hand of his class. Once he has lost it he stands precious little chance of ever regaining it. Koenig is pathetically anxious to make good. For some obscure reason he loves the life here and dreads every day lest he should receive notice to quit. I suppose this love of "ragging" is ingrained. Although I sympathize with and quite like the poor old ass, yet I am as bad as anybody at pulling his leg. About three weeks ago four of us all pretended to be as drunk as man can be and we knocked him about in a most shameful manner and kicked up the devil of a row in his rooms, half wrecking the place. In the end he had to put each of us to bed. After _The Great Adventure_, in which I was too nervous to be much good, I got bitten with the craze of acting, and made my Saturday evening juniors prepare two short plays for the last night of term. That has taken up every hour of my spare time lately and most of my hard-earned salary, for I have to feed the whole cast at every rehearsal. We've got a wonderful new parson master this term who has any amount of originality and cares for no authority. He preached the other day on the text of "a _man_ bearing a pitcher of water," emphasizing the need for _men_ to take upon themselves the duty of bearing religion into the home and not leaving it to the women. I rather think that he fulfils my ideal of a school preacher. He never has any notes, but simply talks in a most personal way about the difficulties that beset him, problems of public interest, even controversial topics. He, at any rate, tries to rouse the intellectual and æsthetic faculties and he is inordinately cheerful always in spite of wretched health. Boys crowd to his rooms for spiritual advice. He is almost the perfect mediator that a priest should be: his own devotion to God irradiates from him at all times and in all places. He is ever gay and sunny, and refuses resolutely ever to be drawn into the thousand little petty quarrels in which the rest of us indulge: his own forms worship him. I have made friends with several outcasts this term, boys who don't fit into the scheme of things and are as a consequence morose, irritable and unhappy. I try my best to make them see the point of school rules and all the rest of the red tape against which they rebel, but I do so in such an unconvincing, lukewarm way that I might just as well keep silence. At any rate they have a refuge in my rooms and thank God they take it. I have had a very good offer made me by the Head Master of Welborough. He wants me at once. When I went to see the Head Master about it he refused to let me go. "Of course," said he, "if you choose to pay the school a term's salary for breach of contract, I cannot prevent you from leaving but----"