Half-way through my second year I wrote to my parents to tell them that I must leave Charterhouse, because I could not stand life there any longer. I told them that the house was making it plain that I did not belong and that it did not want me. I gave them details, in confidence, to make them take my demand seriously. They were unable to respect this confidence, considering that it was their religious duty to inform the house-master of all I had written them. They did not even tell me what they were doing; they contented themselves with visiting me and giving me assurances of the power of prayer and faith; telling me that I must endure all for the sake of ... I have forgotten what exactly. Fortunately I had not given them any account of sex-irregularities in the house, so all that the house-master did was to make a speech that night after prayers deterrent of bullying in general; he told us that he had just had a complaint from a boy’s parents. He made it plain at the same time how much he disliked informers and outside interference in affairs of the house. My name was not mentioned, but the visit of my parents on a day not a holiday had been noticed and commented on. So I had to stay on and be treated as an informer. I was now in the upper school and so had a study of my own. But this was no security; studies had no locks. It was always being wrecked. After my parents’ visit to the house-master it was not even possible for me to use the ordinary house changing-room; I had to remove my games-clothes to a disused shower-bath. My heart went wrong then; the school doctor said I was not to play football. This was low water. My last resource was to sham insanity. It succeeded unexpectedly well. Soon nobody troubled about me except to avoid any contact with me. I must make clear that I am not charging my parents with treachery; they were trying to help me. Their honour is beyond reproach.... One day I went down to Charterhouse by the special train from Waterloo to Godalming. I was too late to take a ticket; I just got into a compartment before the train started. The railway company had not provided enough coaches, so I had to stand up all the way. At Godalming station the crowd of boys rushing out into the station-yard to secure taxis swept me past the ticket collectors, so I had got my very uncomfortable ride free. I mentioned this in my next letter home, just for something to say, and my father sent me a letter of reproach. He said that he had himself made a special visit to Waterloo Station, bought a ticket to Godalming, and torn it up.... My mother was even more scrupulous. A young couple on their honeymoon once happened to stop the night with us at Wimbledon, and left behind them a packet of sandwiches, some of which had already been eaten. My mother sent them on.