Presently he came within sight of the football ground that was his destination. Already a crowd was spreading along the touch-lines. He fingered the switch in his hand with affection. This switch had seen very good service, for it had been handed on from captain to captain from time immemorial. You may have thought that Rouse was about to play Rugby football. He was not. He was about to teach it. On the first day of each winter term at Harley (and also on other days throughout the season) two teams are selected to compete in a practice game, and they consist of small boys and idle boys and new boys. The excuse that some of these may not know Rugby football is of no account. They attend for instruction, and the remainder of the school line up with their waistcoats comfortably loosened in order that they may laugh the more heartily. The games master referees and the captain of football is armed with this switch, a cut from which is awarded, on the occasion of each scrum, to the last man into it, whilst whenever a three-quarter becomes possessed of the ball he is pursued up the field by this selfsame man, running rapidly and urging him with word and gesture and such occasional flicks of his switch as cause each boy, before the game is done, to feel himself possessed of a demon of speed and agility. There is also a cut for any boy who, in making a tackle, fails to go for his man at the knees. It may be noted that old Harleyans attribute the great success of the school at Rugby football very largely to the excellent effect produced by the captain’s switch in junior games; and one famous international has laid it down that in any big match in which he has broken through with the ball upon his chest he has invariably reached by instinct for that extra yard of speed which comes from the fear of a young man racing behind him with a switch, and has thanked his Alma Mater that he was taught to do so. Nor will you ever see an old Harleyan last into a scrum or tackling high. It is a good sign. The crowd made way for Rouse admiringly, and a characteristic smile, which in a young boy would have looked more roguish than anything else, began to appear at the corners of his mouth. In a game like this Rouse was in his element. He looked thoughtfully round the players and finally glanced up and down the touch-lines as if in search of any who had evaded his clutch. There came a ripple of amusement. Some of those present recalled that on the occasion of the corresponding match last year those who laughed the most uproariously from the touch-line had been marked down by Toby Nicholson’s eagle eye during the game, and at half time had been called upon to perform themselves. It was possible that this would occur again, and throughout the world those who have once succumbed to any catch are the keenest layers of the trap for the next man.