Most of the boys hate having to play cricket every afternoon of the term and chafe exceedingly at the tediousness of "half-holidays," when they are expected to stay out at their games for four and a half hours. The more sensible take out rugs and books, and bask in the sun until they are called upon to field, but the temptation to go off and bathe must be pretty strong when you can hear the waves softly lapping on the beach below, calling you to come and cool yourself in the water. There is a most absurd rule here that only school prefects may bathe in the sea: the rest of the school has to content itself with the covered-in baths at stated and only too rare intervals. These rules seem to me to be the ruin of the school: long summer afternoons ought to be given up to freedom and jollity. Boys should be encouraged to go as far away as possible for picnics, bicycle rides, and walks, to keep themselves fresh, instead of which "roll-calls" are held at ridiculously close intervals; not more than two hours are ever allowed to pass without assembling the whole school to answer their names. The place seems to be run on the basis of "Out of sight, up to mischief." Every one suspects everybody else. The Common Room garden, which is the only place in the whole neighbourhood where one can see flowers growing, possesses one tennis-court; the rivalry to secure it for a game among those who like tennis is comic to watch. Intense hatred is bred if any one dares to use it more frequently than any one else. If any of the junior members of the staff try to get a game among themselves they are taunted with a lack of loyalty and duty. It is the young man's privilege to keep an eye on the games, to umpire at cricket and see that fellows don't "slack." Luckily for me, I much prefer the society of the boys, and I play or umpire every day. Equally luckily I am tremendously keen on fielding and I thoroughly enjoy every game I play, so long as I am not expected to take it too seriously. But I certainly sympathize with those unfortunates who hate the game and yet are compelled to waste all these precious afternoons chasing after a ball, not caring in the least who wins or loses or how badly or well they play. Quite a number of boys have told me that they would infinitely prefer that there were no "half-holidays." The hours in school pass so much quicker. If only the surrounding country were passably interesting and we could get up excursions to explore woods or churches, it would to some extent solve the difficulty, but though it is less depressing here in the summer than in the winter, there is no beauty anywhere, nothing to call one away from the eternal round of cricket.