to come down to teach the Sixth. He is in the eyes of the school quite mad. He is careless as to his clothes, wearing next to nothing on a very cold day and arctically clad when it is warm and sunny. He has a knack of forgetting what time it is and sets out for a walk when he ought to be going into school. He is a real poet and a fine classic. His name is Wriothesley and is already known as "the Rotter." On Sundays he wears a top hat and immaculate morning clothes with a white slip, white spats and patent-leather boots. Added to this he stammers and is acutely nervous. The rest of the staff are not inspiring. There are several "beefy Blues," a few slack men who take no interest in anything that occurs in the school outside their form work, and one man who ought to be a country squire, who presides over the local District Council and spends all his energies on running the town. The boys are all gentlemen, very slack, very quiet, care nothing for work and a very great deal too much for "Rugger." Unfortunately I have begun badly. Two articles that I wrote long ago on Public School Reform have just found their way into print. Every one here has read them and they all look on me as a dangerous innovator, unpatriotic and disloyal. It is in vain that I point out that I said these things of another school and under the stress of nerves. I am a marked man. Whatever I do I shall be looked upon with suspicion. They all think I am on the look-out for "copy." Elspeth does not much care for the school people and I don't altogether blame her. The wives are very cliquey, and think that they have a right to dictate to the wives of the younger masters exactly as to how they should dress, how they should behave, who they shall know and who they shall not know. The society of Marlton is very snobbish and divided up into a myriad different sets. At the top there is the Castle clique, who hunt and play polo. Some of these are quite amusing. Then come the school people, who keep to themselves. After them come the professional clique. There are vast numbers of retired Indian military and civilian people, who play bridge and walk about the country doing nothing in particular: to these are attached the doctors, bankers, solicitors, and clergy. Next come the wealthier tradespeople and the other school people. Marlton boasts half a dozen different schools to meet the demands of people of widely differing ideas, Roman Catholic, Secondary, Girls' Colleges, Board, Grammar and National Schools: the place is overrun with educational establishments. There is consequently no dearth of people, though the total population is certainly not more than ten thousand.