Sometimes he goes so far as to decide that he has mistaken his vocation, and he resigns and becomes a school inspector. But presently he notices that elderly and revered colleagues have laughed and grown fat under this treatment for thirty years, and indeed look upon the seething indignation of their subjects as the salt of life. This comforts him. He tries again, and presently discovers that it is possible to be the hated oppressor of his form in public and their familiar friend and trusted adviser in private. Collective hostility vanishes under the influence of a cup of tea or an evening on the river, and individual friendship takes its place. Last of all as he grows older, comes that continuous calm which marks his older colleagues: for he knows now that Jinks minor and Muggins tertius, who sit in the back row with lowering brows and grinding teeth, chafing under his tyranny and preaching sedition at intervals, will one day come and sit in his armchairs, with their feet on his mantelpiece, bearded or sunburned or distinguished, and will convey to him, if not in words, at any rate by their demeanour, their heartfelt thanks for the benefits which he lavished upon them with so unsparing a hand in the grand old days in the Shell or the Remove or the Lower Fifth. That is his reward. Men have died for less. Now, Mr. Hanbury, lord and master of the Lower Shell, a sort of intellectual dust-heap on the Modern side at Grandwich School, was specially favoured by the gods in that he received his reward more quickly than most. He was twenty-nine; he had been a famous Cricket Blue, and he enjoyed the respectful admiration of countless boys, who listened eagerly to his small talk, felt proud when he spoke to them unofficially, and endeavoured to imitate his bowling action. He also possessed other qualifications. He loved his work, he took immense pains to understand each of his boys, and he endeavoured by daily admonition and occasional castigation to goad his form into respectability. For in truth they were a poor lot. Why they were called the Shell was a mystery,--the Sieve would have described them better. Large, cumbrous persons, with small heads and colossal feet, with vacant faces and incipient beards, stuck in its meshes and remained there forever, while their more youthful and slippery brethren wriggled through. Most masters resigned their posts after a year of the Lower Shell, with the result that that glorious company were constantly entrusted to the newest and rawest recruit on the staff. Consequently discipline was lax; and when the Head rather apologetically handed the form over to Mr. Hanbury, it became instantly apparent that the ultimate result would be the collapse of Hanbury or the reformation of the Shell. The latter alternative came to pass, but not before both sides had distinguished themselves in several engagements.