Prayers were in houses on the first morning of the term, and nothing else happened before or after breakfast until the whole school assembled in the big schoolroom at ten o’clock to hear the new school order. Jan pulled his cap over his eyes as he found himself wedged in a crowd from all the houses, converging at the base of the worn stone spiral stair up and down which he had trotted at his ease between the papers of the previous day. Now he was slowly hoisted in the press, the breath crushed from his body, his toes only occasionally encountering a solid step, a helpless atom in a monster’s maw. At the top of the stone stairs, however, and through the studded oak door, there was room for all; but here it was necessary to uncover face and head; and yet none that he knew of old was revealed to Jan’s close though furtive scrutiny. Carpenter, who had come with him, and squeezed into the next seat, watched the watcher in his turn, and then whispered: “He’s not come back yet.” “Who’s not?” “Evan Devereux. I asked a fellow in his house.” “What made you think of him now?” “Oh, nothing. I only thought you might be looking to see if he was here.” “Well, perhaps I was,” said Jan, with grumpy candour. “But I’m sure I don’t care where he is.” “No more do I, goodness knows!” said Carpenter. And between three and four hundred chattered on all sides with subdued but ceaseless animation; the præpostors keeping order more or less, but themselves chatting to each other as became the first morning of the term. Then suddenly there fell an impressive silence. The oak door opened with a terrible click of the latch, like the cocking of a huge revolver, and in trooped all the masters, cap in hand and gown on shoulders, led by a little old man with a kindly, solemn, and imperious air. And Jan felt that this could only be Mr. Thrale, the Head Master, but Carpenter whispered: “That’s Jerry!” “Who?” “Old Thrale, of course, but everybody calls him Jerry.” And Jan liked everybody’s impudence as Mr. Thrale took his place behind a simple desk on the dais, and read out the new list, form by form, as impressively as Holy Writ. The first names that Jan recognised were those of Loder, the captain of his house, and Cave _major_, its most distinguished representative on tented field; they were in the Upper and Lower Sixth respectively. Joyce was still in the Remove, as captain of the form, but Crabtree had gained a double remove from the Lower to the Upper Fifth. Next in Jan’s ken came Shockley—the fellow who had threatened to make him wish he was dead—and then most thrillingly—long before either expected it—Carpenter’s name and his own in quick succession. “What form will it be?” whispered Jan into the other’s ear. “Middle Remove,” purred Carpenter. “And we don’t have to fag after all!” Devereux was the next and the last name that Jan remembered hearing: it was actually in the form below his!