To the house prefect no such fine shades of motive are ascribed. He is not considered to be above suspicion, and he is allowed to indulge certain corresponding weaknesses. His business is to see that order is kept; the new prefect forms numberless resolutions. He is acutely conscious of his dignity, his bearing partakes of the solemnity of Malvolio. He wonders whether he ought to remain on terms of such easy familiarity with certain rowdy elements in the house. A prefect should not have too many friends. He should be the calm, implacable judge, impersonal, impartial, with bandaged eyes. He is very haughty for a day or two. But within a fortnight he has recovered. He becomes sociable once more. He walks down to the field with his old friends. He does not wonder whether it is wise or unwise to exchange confidences with those whose conduct one day he may be forced to view with official disapproval. He takes notice of, and deals with, only those problems that crop up from time to time. He acquires a wholesome tolerance of other people's business, a tolerance that slips over the border of indifference, but remains an admirable social lubricant. It is this indifference, this refusal to be upset about trivial matters that can be left to adjust themselves, that is the secret of the success of British administration. Other nations and classes do not seem to possess it. The artisan when put in a position of authority bothers about the unimportant, he gives himself no peace, and he gives those under him no peace. There is constant friction. Troops almost invariably prefer to be under the command of public school men rather than of 'rankers.' CHAPTER X THE LAST TERM The last year, and especially the last term, is popularly supposed to be the happiest of a public school career. And it is possible that this may be so in the case of an industrious, worthy, but not particularly brilliant fellow who reaches in his last year the privileges of house prefectship, the immunities of the Lower Sixth and the social hall-mark of a second fifteen cap. At last, after a struggle of five years, he has extricated himself from the rut.