However, all's well that ends well, and among the many amusements which made that day a Merry Christmas to us all there was none over which we laughed more than "Bubbles's Ghost." CHAPTER THREE. Sub-Chapter I. THE POETRY CLUB. During one of my terms at G-- (and in speaking of that famous old school it is quite unnecessary to mention more than the first letter of its name) a serious epidemic broke out. It affected chiefly the lower half of the upper school, and during the brief period of its duration it assumed so malignant a type that it is still a marvel to me how any one of its victims ever survived it. The medical and other authorities were utterly incompetent to deal with it. In fact--incredible as it may seem--they deliberately ignored its existence, and left the sufferers to pull through as and how they could. Had it been an ordinary outbreak, as, for instance, scarlatina or diphtheria, or even measles, they would have cleared the school between two "call-overs," and had us all either in the infirmary or in four-wheelers at our parents' doors. But just because they had not got this--the most destructive kind of all epidemics--down on their list of infectious disorders, they chose to disregard it utterly, and leave us all to sink or swim, without even calling in the doctor to see us or giving our people at home the option of withdrawing us from our infected surroundings. I love the old place too well to dwell further on this gross case of neglect. The present authorities no doubt would not repeat the error of their predecessors. Should they be tempted to do so, I trust the present harrowing revelation may be in time to avert the repetition of the calamity of which I was not only a witness but a victim. The fact is, in the term to which I allude, we fellows in the upper Fifth and lower Sixth took to _writing poetry_! I don't know how the distemper broke out, or who brought it to G--. Certain it is we all took it, some worse than others; and had not the Christmas holidays happily intervened to scatter us and so reduce the perils of the contagion, the results might have been worse even than they were. Now, one poet in a school is bad enough; and two usually make a place very uncomfortable for any ordinarily constituted person. But at G-- it was not a case of one poet or even two. There were twenty of us, if there was one, and we each of us considered our claim to the laurel wreath paramount. Indeed, like the bards of old, we fell to the most unseemly contentions, and hated one another as only poets can hate.