Jones is tempted to say that in another minute personal relationships will have a good deal to do with the matter, but he appreciates the necessity for tact. He talks, he argues, he cajoles; his patience is tried to the last degree. It is difficult to discuss a matter on grounds of personal and practical expediency when the other party refuses to desert the platform of high morality. In the end probably Jones is promised silence in return for reformation, and, as the door closes behind his old friend, he murmurs: 'Put not your trust in princes.' The officious prefect is not content with the exposure of confidences received during his period of probation, he endeavours to unearth present scandals, and this is a point on which popular opinion is very strong. The moral tone of the house is not considered to be the concern of the house prefect. That is the province of the house master and the head boy. The position of the head boy is a little difficult to define. He is the intermediary between mortality and Olympus. He is supposed to be above suspicion. He is the only person who is allowed to do anything out of 'a sense of duty.' If a house prefect interferes in the private affairs of another, an ulterior motive is always suggested, and the suggestion is probably justified. Whether or not a head boy is justified in unearthing scandal is an open point. There are those who will maintain that he should only take notice of what actually hits him in the face. The reason being that what hits the head of the house in the face will, sooner or later, inflict a similar shock to the physiognomy of the house master. And this should be avoided. In the first place, the house master will lose his high opinion of his head boy; in the second, a scandal that might have been prevented will reach official notice. Indeed, there are not a few who will go so far as to assert that the function of a head boy is that of the taster, the impersonal critic who says: 'No, that is going too far.' He is the aeroplane photograph of a strategic position, that shows what gun emplacements are obvious and which are not. And, according to this line of argument, head boys should only concern themselves with the obvious; what was not apparent to them would certainly not be apparent to a house master; there is no need for them to play at Sherlock Holmes. But this is a point on which the vote has not been taken. There are several schools of thought: all schools of thought are, however, joined in the denial of the right of the head boy to report to the house master anything save a case of insubordination or disloyalty on the part of a brother prefect. A head boy, it is felt, should be able to deal with the discipline and conduct of the house himself. To report is to confess a failure.