A faint smile spread over the Head’s face as he looked at the big, jolly boy. “And tell your—your learned brethren,” he said, “what I say. The authorities in your house are Mr. Adams and the prefects, and there are no other authorities. But I believe now that on the whole the court meant well, and I am quite certain it enjoyed itself immensely. That particular enjoyment, I am afraid, must cease; but I want it—the court, that is—to continue meaning well in a private capacity, and to support the prefects’ authority, though it may no longer enforce or reverse their orders. And, Blaize, this is for your private ear alone: I think the Court probably did very useful work. But we mustn’t have any more courts. That’s all, then. How are you getting on? Well, I hope, and Mr. Adams seems to think so. Heard anything from your friend Maddox lately?” “Gosh, what a brick!” said David to himself, as he went out. . . . CHAPTER XV David was lying on his back under the big elm-tree near the cricket pavilion one Sunday afternoon in mid-June. By him, upright and attentive, sat the faithful Bags, listening and occasionally playing the part of Greek chorus (that is to say, putting in short, appropriate reflections) to a quantity of surprising information. Both boys wore the white tie characteristic of prefects on Sunday, for both had got their promotion into the lower sixth at Easter, and were colleagues of the inefficient Manton and Crossley. Those two young gentlemen, it may be remarked, were vastly relieved to have the burden of authority taken off their somewhat feeble shoulders, and David and Bags (particularly David) ruled the house with genial exuberance, and, when necessary, a rod of iron. Just now both the iron and the exuberance were relaxed, and David lay there in an abandonment of physical laziness. His straw hat, with cricket eleven colours, was tilted over the top part of his face, so as to shield his eyes from the speckles and sparkles of sun that filtered through the canopy of leaves above him, and his mouth and chin alone were visible. His long legs were stretched out in front of him, showing a white hiatus between a despondent sock and the end of his trousers, and a persistent fly kept settling there, an attention which he acknowledged by dabbing at it with the other ankle. “’Tisn’t as if I was a little boy any longer,” he said. “When a fellow is close on seventeen, as you and I are, it’s time he began to realise that he’s grown up. Why, my mother was only seventeen when she married.” “But do you propose to marry at seventeen?” asked Bags with sarcastic allusion to the conversation that had gone before. “Where’ll she live? She can’t very well sleep in dormitory.” David gave a little spurt of laughter, and the sun shone on his white teeth, and down his red throat. But he quickly became grave again.