Is the pursuit of athletic success a sufficiently engrossing occupation for such a boy? That is the question that a house master unconsciously puts to himself. He must put it to himself, but his attitude to this particular type of boy is based on a non-committal answer to this question: the answer--'Perhaps; but it's up to you.' The house master, therefore, does all in his power to persuade the boy that the acquiring of a First Fifteen cap is his immediate object in life. He will not state his case in words; but he will omit the uncomfortable topic of form work in conversations, and discuss at length the prospects of the house in the senior matches. If he does not succeed in directing the entire energy of the boy on games, the results of such a failure may be disastrous. A fellow of seventeen who has nothing particular to do is bound to find himself in mischief. This fact is realised by both parents and house masters, and those boys who are good neither at games nor work usually leave at about this period. It is the falling out of the unsuccessful runner in a long race. It is no good going on. The leaders are too far ahead. The gap between the senior and the junior is thus considerably increased. The stepping-stones have been removed. A boy of eighteen at the start of his last year sees very few of his contemporaries sitting at the Sixth Form table. Of the eight or nine boys who came there with him, only three are left, and the Fifth Form table is filled by fellows two or three years junior to himself, with whom he has but a slight acquaintance. It is always the 'blood' who is asked to stop on that extra year. The insignificant are encouraged by silence to retire. 'Thou shalt not kill, yet needst not strive Officiously to keep alive.' By the time the boy comes to be a prefect he is able to feel himself supreme, not only because of the system that is at his back. CHAPTER IX PREFECTSHIP