It is equally difficult to acknowledge innocence in the midst of crime. At my old school there was an excellent rule that for half an hour after lunch we should sit in our class-rooms and read quietly. One afternoon this peaceful siesta was disturbed by a loud and fierce and general discussion of the superiority of Yorkshire cricket over that of Lancashire. The particular class-room unfortunately happened to be situated beneath the nursery of the head master's children, and the angry voices of the disputants roused from her slumbers a recent addition to the family. The complaints of a very indignant nurse forced a very busy master to disturb the repose of that restful half-hour after lunch. On this occasion the usual formula was reversed. He did not ask the names of the boys who had been talking, he asked for the names of the boys who had not been talking. Now, as it happened, I had taken no part in the argument. I am a Middlesex supporter, I had just received as a birthday present a bound volume of _Chums_, I was also, at the time, in popular disfavour. So I had seated myself in a far corner of the room and read steadily, with my fingers pressed into my ears. But I did not dare to say so. I should never have been forgiven. It would have been the action of a conscientious objector. No one would have believed me. I realised how hopelessly out of things I should feel while the rest of the school were receiving their punishment. Suppose a half-holiday was stopped--what on earth should I do with a half-holiday all to myself? I should be much happier working out theorems in a class-room. And it was also possible that I might have said something that some one had overheard--at any rate, I was not going to risk it. I sat silent at my desk and accepted meekly the common lot.