They had gone through the gate into the master’s garden, beyond which lay the bathing-place. This was penetrable only by masters and by the sixth-form, and there was no turning back, or avoiding what was to David a rather formidable meeting. It was quite illogical that he should find it so, since he had leave, but he had not met the Head since the interview in the disused class-room, and the halo of terror still shone about his head. He nodded kindly to the boys as they dropped into walking pace and took their caps off, and then stopped. “Fine innings of yours, Maddox,” he said. “I congratulate you. You too, Blaize. A lot to expect, wasn’t it, that you should bowl Mr. Tovey’s eleven out one day, and keep up your wicket to win the match the next? Very glad you did it successfully.” David, still rather awed, shifted from one foot to the other. “Thanks awfully, sir,” he said. “I—I’ve got leave to bathe from Mr. Adams.” The Head looked at him a moment, with a certain merriment lurking below his gravity. “Quite sure?” he asked. David saw this was a joke, and laughed. “I want just a word with you, Maddox,” said the Head. “Will you go on, Blaize?” The Head waited a moment. “It’s about Blaize I wanted to speak to you, Maddox,” he said. “How is he getting on? I had to give him a good whipping last term. Is he more—more rational?” “He’s come on tremendously sir,” said Maddox. “He’s getting on excellently.” “I’m glad you think that, because I believe he’s one of the most promising boys we’ve got, and you know him, I should think, better than any of us.” Maddox wondered how on earth the Head knew that. Adams might know; but how did the Head? “I don’t want his cricket to interfere with his work,” he said. “The middle fifth had to write an essay last week, and I told Mr. Howliss to send them in to me to look over. All but two or three were dreadful rubbish, but Blaize’s was excellent. And, as you’re a Trinity scholar as well as being captain of the eleven, you can see my point of view. Do you think he’s getting cricket out of focus? He ought to be higher in his form, you know.” Maddox shook his head. “Oh, I don’t think Blaize is a bit unbalanced about his cricket, sir,” he said. “I always rub it in that cricket doesn’t matter. At least I usually do, though I didn’t to-day, because I couldn’t after he’d bowled like that. But I’ll rub it in again after to-morrow.” “Why after to-morrow?” asked the Head. “Because I was going to put him into the twenty-two to-night sir, though he doesn’t know yet, and I must let him enjoy it a bit. And then there’s the eleven against the sixteen on Saturday next, and after his whole record in house-matches, it’s just a question whether he oughtn’t to play for the eleven. There are four places left.” The Trinity scholar had certainly got absorbed in the captain of the eleven. “You mean he has a chance of his school-colours?” asked the Head.