The boys straggled along the road in twos and threes, hands in pockets, points of Eton jackets sticking out behind. Hurrish, the nice master, was just in front of us, walking with Goldingham. I saw the latter turn his face up sideways as he asked some question, and I suddenly wondered whether he knew how odd he looked, or, indeed, what he looked like at all. I wondered what sort of “sections” and adventures Goldingham, Hurrish, and all these Eton-jacketed boys had been through before they arrived at _this;_ and next it flashed across me what a grotesque result it was for LeVallon to have reached after so many picturesque and stimulating lives--an Eton jacket, a mortar-board, and tight Wesleyan striped trousers. And now, as I recall these curious recollections of years ago, it occurs to me as remarkable that, although a sense of humour was not lacking in either of us, yet neither then nor now could the spirit of the comic, and certainly never of the ludicrous, rob by one little jot the reality, the deep, convincing actuality of these strange convictions that LeVallon and I shared together when at Motfield Close we studied Greek and Latin, while remembering a world before Greeks or Latins ever existed at all. CHAPTER VI “_There seems nothing in pre-existence incompatible with any of the dogmas which are generally accepted as fundamental to Christianity._”--Prof. M’Taggart. By my last half-year at Motfield Close, when I was Head of the school, LeVallon had already left, but the summer term preceding his departure is the one most full of delightful recollections for me. He was Head then--which proves that he was sufficiently normal and practical to hold that typically English position, and to win respect in it--and I was “Follow-on Head,” as we called it. I suppose he was verging on eighteen at the time, for neither of us was destined for a Public School later, and we stayed on longer than the general run of boys. We still shared the room with Goldingham--“Goldie,” who went on to Wellington and Sandhurst, and afterwards lost his life in the Zulu War--and we enjoyed an unusual amount of liberty. The “triumvirate” the masters called us, and I remember that we were proud of topping Hurrish by half an inch, each being over six feet in his socks.