At the beginning of my third year at school, when I was very happy, very light-hearted, very boisterous, and, I suppose, rather obnoxious generally, I was standing at the counter of the tuck shop waiting to be served with a poached egg and a sausage. I experienced considerable difficulty in catching the eye of the waitress, and for the better announcing of my presence I took a knife out of the basket and beat it upon the zinc covering of the counter. The waitress, who was harassed by the number of orders, turned round impatiently: 'Oh, do be quiet, Mr. Waugh,' she said, 'I don't know what's come over you lately. You used to be such a nice quiet boy when you first came.' Several people laughed, but her remark was a shock to me. I had not the slightest romantic interest in her. I did not care greatly what opinion she held of my moral worth, but I had not before realised that it was possible for a change of which I was myself ignorant to take place within me, that a process of degeneration could take its slow effect, altering me in the eyes of others, leaving me unaltered in my own, that, like rust on iron, environment could corrode temperament. That chance remark had a most profound effect on me. It gave me a sudden insight into the secret forces that lie under the surface of life. I do not know whether from the outside I appeared afterwards a different person. One cannot focus the impression one has of oneself and the impression one makes on others. But to myself I know that I was different. And some such revelation invariably comes to a boy during his period of school life. In novels and stories we attribute it to some emotional crisis. The reason of the change is less important than that there should be change, and that the reader should be able to realise that for such a change there was a reason. But, actually, the reason is usually trivial enough. It may be that a boy's pride has been rebuffed; some one has got a house cap before him. He begins to reassure himself with the old dope: 'There is plenty of time. It doesn't matter. I'll catch him later on.' But for once the old dope does not work. He realises with a shock that there is less time than he had thought. He has allowed his rival to get too far ahead. A house cap is only two stages distant from a first. He may not have time to catch him up. In the light of the discovery he revises his whole career. He asks himself whither he is drifting. He sees that he has passed beyond the stage of a vague promise into one of definite rivalry and achievement.