“Oh, I don’t think so! He was a bit crumby that night, but he soon gets over it.” “I hope so. I like Bert. I suppose I’ll have to make up my mind to getting a few of the fellows down on me before the year’s over. Bound to, I guess. It’s hard to make them realize that it’s my duty to report things. They don’t think anything about it if it’s one of the masters, but they resent it if it’s a proctor. How do you like the school, Ordway? I suppose it’s different from your schools in England.” “I fancy so. I never went to an English school, though; never went to any school before I came here. Of course I’ve heard lots about the English schools; I know quite a few chaps at Rugby and Charterhouse and Winchester; and I rather fancy we’re a bit different here. But I like it very much. Fact is, Cathcart, I was in a regular blue funk about coming here. I rather thought the chaps would rag me a lot, you know, but they haven’t. Nick Blake does, but I don’t mind Nick a bit. Of course, I am different, I fancy; rather stupid about a lot of things; and I’m only just beginning to understand that you chaps don’t mean more than about half you say. It puzzled me a lot at first, you know. You have a way of poking fun at things, if you know what I mean, that sounds odd until you understand that it _is_ fun. I didn’t; not at first. I’m learning, though.” “I suppose we are different,” acknowledged Cathcart, “in some ways. Sometimes I think we don’t take things seriously enough, Ordway, we fellows here at Grafton. Not that Grafton is much different from other preparatory schools, though.” “That’s what I like,” said Hugh eagerly. “I think your way of not taking things seriously is awfully jolly. It isn’t that you really don’t――don’t _know_ that they’re serious――when they are――but you simply don’t take them so. As I say, I’ve never been to an English school, but I’m sure you fellows over here get a lot more fun than we do on the other side. Just at first some of the fun seemed to me to be rather――I say, I hope you won’t mind it, old chap, but it seemed a bit silly, if you know what I mean.” “I think a lot of our fun is,” replied Cathcart, “but it’s generally fairly harmless. Of course, the other night was different, but that was exceptional here. We aren’t in the habit of blacking each other’s eyes, you see.” “But I liked that! That was――was so jolly spontaneous, eh? Some of the fun seems a bit――well, a bit studied, but that wasn’t. A lot of chaps have been awfully apologetic about that affair, and I don’t see why. On the other side we’d have thought nothing about it, and the masters wouldn’t have noticed it, I fancy. But we’re a bit more used to using our fists than you chaps, I think. I say, though, here I am talking like ‘a bloomin’ Britisher,’ as Nick says, when I’m really just as much American as I am English.”