The first objection raised by authority is that it is very bad for a small boy to be petted and treated like a girl. And such is an undoubted fact. The small boy who is taken up by a 'blood' makes a very good thing out of it. He gets first-hand information on a number of disputed points. He knows two or three hours before any one else in the day room who is going to be given his house cap and who his seconds. He has a position among his contemporaries. Favours are sought through him. His friends get leave off house runs and are allowed to watch First Eleven matches when others have to attend pick ups. He is immune from the assaults of the swash-bucklers, for no one would willingly run the risk of making himself unpopular with the bloods. He gets his 'con' done for him, and, after football, he will sit in front of a warm study fire. He has many privileges, and, of course, it is very bad for him. How far the effects last into manhood I cannot say with any degree of certainty. I am inclined to think that they pass more quickly than is popularly imagined. But the small boy who is taken up by his seniors gets very little out of his schooldays. If he gets taken up by a 'blood' he has a fairly good time while that blood is still at school. But it is by no means certain that he will be taken up by a blood, and he may very likely find himself an object of fierce jealousy between two fellows in the Middle School, both of whom he likes, but for neither of whom he feels any strong attachment. Neither of them is sufficiently important to claim a monopoly. Between them they contrive to make his life wretched for him. They worry him with notes and with pleas for an appointment. Each tries to persuade him to have nothing to do with the other. The whole of his spare time is divided between them. And the small boy who is unable to see why he should not choose what friends he likes, grows more and more impatient. At the end of a term's wrangling he decides to speak to neither of them again.