The Head, for his part, found them pleasant days. He knew at last the wonder of his power. His strength had triumphed. He had the reputation of never doing the expected. His answer to their challenge had taken the wind completely from their sails and left them open-mouthed with awe. They were spellbound with his invincible strength of purpose. They realised at last that they had met their master. Slowly but surely he was making them bow before him. They had counted upon him making Rouse the scapegoat and they had prepared to defeat him. Instead he had defeated them. The feeling was delightful. He went his way with a shrewdly grim expression befitting a man of such resolution, but at heart he was laughing in delight. He began to overlook the disappointment he had experienced in his son. Perhaps his son was not to blame. After all, one of his stamp in one family was all that folk could reasonably expect. He looked round and about him each day and saw boys wriggling under his iron rule. He did not wonder why they did not defy him. He was content to know that they were learning a lesson they would never forget as long as they lived, and he gloried in prolonging it. Once he reminded them that their punishment could not be lightened in any way until Rouse came to him to say that the school would bow to his ruling and would recognise his son. They just ignored him. So days passed. Soon Toby had been gone a fortnight. No news came. Terence had had letters but they conveyed only one exhortation. They gave no such message as the whole school longed so feverishly to hear. And then at last, when the utter weariness of life had grown almost more than they could bear, and some had begun to doubt if Toby could really do anything for them, something happened. Terence was sitting with Rouse in his study one evening when there sounded upon the door a sharp, peremptory knock. Then the door swung on its hinges and there entered one who held himself strangely erect, whose chin was so proudly uplifted that he seemed a living example of the proud and patient spirit that was keeping Harley solid during this the last round of the long fight. His glasses had slipped a little over the bridge of his nose, and when he stopped and brought his gaze to bear upon them each in turn he looked at them quaintly over the rims. At last his bearing relaxed. Safely inside the room with the closed door behind him he became suddenly a human boy, and it was clear that he was somewhat unsettled. It made him rather more likeable. “I want to tell you something,” he began. “P’r’aps I ought to have come before, but I’ve been waiting to make sure.” “What is it, Henry?” said Rouse. Henry cast a deprecating eye at his clothes and, following his gaze, Rouse perceived that they were smeared with dirt. He held out his hands and revealed their blackened palms. “I’ve been climbing up another drain-pipe.”