And with the sudden flick of the forearm that in the cricket field had proved so disastrous to the batsman who had risked a short run to cover, the unerring discharge of a pillow has prostrated the startled Ferrers. From that moment mischief is afoot. It takes what course it will. And that course will probably involve the overturning of a good many jugs, the stripping of innumerable beds, the splitting of several pillows. In a brief while the air will be filled with feathers, the floor with mattresses and soaking sheets. And when, an hour later, the house master is summoned by an indignant matron to view the battlefield, who will be held responsible? To whose account is he to debit the broken jugs and the torn pillows? Whom can he deprive of office? He will, no doubt, collect the house in his study; every one will spend the last day inscribing a georgic or an eclogue. But the house will feel that it has triumphed. What, after all, can the house master say? If he begins to criticise Morcombe the reply is obvious. 'But I tried to stop it, sir, I did my best. But they wouldn't take any notice of me, sir. I had no authority over them.' If the house master is wise he will say as little as possible. He will announce the punishment, and the next term place more trust in his prefects. However bad an individual set of prefects may be, without them things would be a good deal worse. S. P. B. Mais in his first, and perhaps best, book dealing with Public Schools, devoted a chapter to the various types of prefects, the effect that office had on each type, and the use each type made of its privileges. He maintained that certain types were unfitted for authority, and that no boy who had not a view of life that passed beyond the limits of school should be given such authority. That is no doubt the ideal, but it is impracticable. A house master has to make the most of the material at his disposal: if he is dissatisfied he must blame himself. He has had his five years in which to fashion the malleable substance to his fancy. If a boy is high in form and a school colour and has been several years in the house, it is impossible to pass him over in favour of a junior boy who is lower in form and a less successful athlete. Prefectship has to go by seniority. The moment it was felt that office went to the boys in whom the house master happened to have most faith, the word 'favouritism' would be run like a corroding poison through the system of the house. The favourite would be universally distrusted and disliked. A certain class of boy would develop the 'conspiracy complex' that every hand was against him, and, in time, he would become what he imagined others took him for.