The change begins, I suppose, on the first evening of the second term, when the novice, clad appropriately in bowler hat and coloured tie, is accosted by a member of the form into which he has been promoted and informed that he will be expected to do the 'con' for them that term. There is no threat. It is merely the announcement of an arrangement for mutual help. The old stagers who have slowly moved up the school, with the danger of superannuation camping on their trail, consider that their last terms should pass in a soft tranquility. They expect the newcomer to provide them with that peace. 'Here,' they say, 'is a smart lad who has got his promotion straight away; he can be of great service to us.' It is a form of practical communism of which the scholar is particularly the victim. There is a general conscription of intellect. Scholars are expected to do the work of the bloods. 'You are paid to come here,' say the great men, 'you must prove yourselves worthy of your hire.' Arnold Lunn has described how the captain of his house used to hold an educational raffle. Slips of paper on which were written: 'Greek Prose'; 'Latin Prose'; 'Essay,' were placed in a hat and the scholars took their chance of drawing a blank. I can still hear the voice of the school fast-bowler shouting over the banisters to a wretched goggle-eyed youth, 'No. 69, Becke, and shove it in my study before prayers.' But the scholar is an exceptional person, and the novice who is accosted in the courts has an easier fate. He does not have to do other people's work. He merely has to do his own out loud. He is, moreover, a privileged person. He does not have to look the words up in a dictionary. That is the task of another member of the combination. He is spared the hack work of translation. It is for him to discover the sense. At a first glance it would seem that this arrangement would be to the advantage of the new boy; certainly it will ensure his industry. There is no chance of his scamping his work. The fate of others depends on his efficiency, and it does not pay him to guess at the sense. I remember once translating _Remotis arbielis, surrexit e lectulo_, 'having kicked off his bedclothes he rose from his bed.' No one questioned the interpretation, so I proceeded to the next sentence. None of us luckily was put on to translate that passage, but I can recall now the icy looks of the other members of the combination when the sentence was correctly rendered. I made a bolt for it afterwards, but they caught me. I did not guess again.