This system is the basis for all administration, for the delegation of all responsibility. It rarely fails. When I shared a study with another prefect we divided eight fags between us. The best of these eight we appointed fag-master. 'You will do no fagging yourself, Marston,' we told him. 'To each of the other seven fags will be allotted one day of the week. You will see that they do their job. If the fire goes out, you will be beaten.' During the whole of that winter our fire never went out once. It is a regrettable fact, but a true one, that human beings will only work under the influence of a bribe, or of a threat. In the wide world it is usually a bribe. One may not threaten the foreman of an oil works. He has his union behind him. But there are no trade unions for fags: a judicious threat works wonders. And, when all other forces weaken, the wish to retain office helps the prefect to his task. Were there no prefects, no scapegoats, there would be no order. They are the exchange of hostages. Suppose an attempt was made to run a house without them? How long do you imagine that it would last? Five days, six days, a week? Yes, perhaps as long as that: not longer: certainly I would not give it longer than a week. Such an experiment might be tried at the end of a long and unsatisfactory term during which several of the prefects had, at some time or another, come into collision with official ruling. And the climax might have been reached, shall we say, on the last Tuesday of the term, when the head of the house was discovered during 'prep.' playing the organ in the big school. Next day, after lunch, the house would be astonished by the following announcement: 'I don't know,' the house master would say, 'whether I approve of the prefectorial system or not--that's neither here nor there. At any rate it has not worked well with my present set of prefects, and, for the rest of the term I propose to dispense with them. I shall occupy during preparation the small study at the end of the passage, and the house tutor will supervise preparation in the day room. I shall occupy the small single dormitory by the fire escape. That is all.' It is possible, is it not, as the sudden resolution of an overworked, exasperated man who had not paused to consider the results of his decision. Well, what would happen then? We can guess to a certain extent. It is, at least, a subject of interesting speculation. What would happen to a house that had no prefects?