Hostilities began early. On Linklater's first appearance in the Lower Sixth, Mr. Bradshaw remarked unfavourably on the shape of his collar, and elicited loud and sycophantic laughter--which is always music in the ears of men of his type--by several facetious comments on the colour of his tie. Linklater chafed and glowered, and muttered "Swine!" under his breath,--symptoms of discomfiture which only roused Mr. Bradshaw to further humorous efforts. Thereafter the two waged perpetual warfare. Linklater took his opponent's measure with great accuracy, and then advanced to battle. He discovered that Mr. Bradshaw was deaf in his left ear. He therefore made a point, whenever possible, of sitting on that side and making obscene noises. Mr. Bradshaw was extremely bald, and ashamed of the fact. Linklater had noted in his study of the Scriptures that the prophet Elisha had suffered from the same infirmity: consequently Mr. Bradshaw found his blackboard adorned every morning for a month with the single word ELISHA in staring capitals. When Mr. Bradshaw was irritable Linklater was serenely cheerful; when Mr. Bradshaw was blandly sarcastic Linklater was densely stupid; and after ostentatious efforts to understand his preceptor's innuendoes, would shake his head pityingly, with a patient sigh at such ill-timed levity. So the battle went on. Every schoolboy knows what it must have been like. Matters were bound to come to a crisis. One morning, during a Cicero lesson, the form came upon a Greek expression amid the Latin text, and Mr. Bradshaw, who rather fancied himself at this sort of thing, added a touch of distinction to his translation by rendering the word in French. The form received this flight of scholarship without enthusiasm, merely wondering in their hearts how any man could be such an unmitigated ass as to be desirous of elucidating for them a language of which they knew but little by translating it into another of which they knew still less. "Yes, _élan_ is exactly the right translation," quoth Mr. Bradshaw, well pleased. "There is always a way out of every difficulty if we only look for it. Get on!" "Please, sir, what does _élan_ mean, exactly?" inquired Linklater, not because he wished to know, but in the hope that "Braddy" would waste several precious minutes in explaining. The master rose to the bait. "Mean? Bless my soul, what a question! Not know? Here, tell him, somebody--Martin, Levesley, Smith, Forbes, next, next, next!" Various futile translations were offered, and Mr. Bradshaw stormed again. "Do you fellows do _anything_ in the French hour except eat bananas?" he inquired. (Deferential sniggers.) "What are French lessons but an excuse for idleness? Really, I must ask the Head--" They let him run on, while the golden moments slipped by. As soon as he showed signs of flagging, Linklater, seeing that it still wanted eight minutes to the hour, repeated-- "But what _does_ it mean, sir?"