Jan did not affect any further indifference; but he refused to accept a sanguine interpretation of the alleged interview. Dudley Relton was a new master that term, but as an Oxford cricketer his fame was scarcely past its height. He had led that University at Lord’s the very year before; and here he was in the van of a new movement, as perhaps the earliest pioneer of the so-called “cricket master” to whom the school professional now plays second fiddle. The innovation was characteristic of Mr. Thrale, and not out of harmony with a general feeling that no mere player could replace the giant who had completed his mortal innings since Chips and Jan obtained their first school caps of him. It remained to be seen, however, whether Dudley Relton was the right man in an anomalous place. It was said that he was disposed to interfere with the composition of the Eleven, that a strong captain would have put him in his place, that the great Charles Cave had done so on his own account, and that Dudley Relton had still to justify his existence as a professed discoverer of buried talent. Of such material Chips constructed a certain castle in the air, and put in Jan as tenant for the term of his school life; and was so full of his unselfish dream that the July Mag., actually containing the “wild panegyric in praise of the jolliest term of the three,” came out, as it were, behind the poet’s back; and he had the rare experience of hearing himself quoted before he saw himself in print. It was after second school, and Chips had gone into hall to see the cricket in the papers. He found a group of fellows skimming the new Magazine, just out that minute, and chuckling indulgently over some item or other in its contents. “That’s not bad about 'basking on the rugs on the Upper,’” remarked Crabtree, critically; and Chips felt his heart between his teeth. “The whole thing isn’t bad,” affirmed no other than Charles Cave, and that made Chips feel as though a royal palm had rested on his head; but there was just an element of doubt about the matter, owing to Crabtree’s slight misquotation, which was more than literary flesh and blood could stand. “You might let me see!” gasped Chips, at Crabtree’s elbow. “Why should I?” demanded that worthy, with all the outraged dignity of his very decided seniority. Chips knew too well that he had taken a liberty which the actual circumstances alone could excuse; but nobody else was listening yet, so he whispered in Crabtree’s ear, “Because I wrote it!” “You what?” cried Crabtree, irritably. “I wrote that thing.” “What thing?” Everybody was listening now. “That thing you’re reading about 'Summer-Term,’” said Chips shamefacedly. “What a lie!” cried half the fellows in the hall. “It isn’t. I swear I did.” Charles Cave was too great a man either to pass any comment on the situation, or to withdraw the one he had already made on the verses themselves. But Crabtree was nodding his great red head with intimidating violence.