I have had my fill of refereeing in House matches this term. Nothing is so calculated to bring one into bad odour with a House or with other members of Common Room. I only do it because they never can get any one else. One strives to be scrupulously fair, and the result is that the whole game devolves into a series of whistles and free kicks. The excitement of playing in a House match causes quite the majority of boys to forget that they are merely playing a game: they try to do everything in their power to secure the advantage, however alien to the spirit of the game. They are told before they go on to the field that unless they lose their tempers and fight from the very beginning they will not do themselves justice, which in itself is counsel of a most doubtful kind; they certainly act up to instructions. Every decision the referee gives is construed as a direct piece of favouritism, and conversation and argument run high on a doubtful try for weeks after the event. Another thing that I have come up against this term is the dignity of the prefects. As one grows older one forgets the awe in which these mighty men are held by the school, mighty, that is, if they have been elected for their physical prowess: they are of no account if they are prefects merely because of their intellectual attainments. I have been trying quietly to counteract this state of things by being peculiarly courteous and dignified in my treatment of the scholars and rather hail-fellow-well-met with the "games bloods." They are certainly obtuse, but they quite quickly saw through this. Of course a "games blood" takes infinitely higher rank than any assistant master under thirty, in fact than all of us except the House-masters: he resents being patronized by such an upstart, for instance, as myself. Consequently, by my action in this matter I have let myself in for a feud which may last for years. I have deeply offended the real rulers of the school. It came about owing to the fact that I have several prefects (elected solely for their "beefiness") in my low mathematical sets. They never do any work and altogether set a rotten example to the others. Of late I have been punishing these boys very heavily, to the great astonishment of themselves and no little enjoyment of the other boys. One of these giants complained to Hallows, his House-master, who came to me in a towering rage and told me that I was subverting the whole of the Public School tradition, lowering the dignity of the prefects and--Heaven knows what besides. "How the blazes are these fellows going to keep order when the rest of the school see that a young new master can defy them at will and set them punishments which degrade them in the sight of their own fags?"