"Good-bye, John--you'll soon settle down,"--then the long pause, the last look into his eyes, and the tightened hand. These impressions burnt themselves upon the boy's brain, and, somewhat overwhelmed with the pain of it all, he stood watching the train dwindle down the line. It drew out of sight, first the long length of carriage windows, then the shortened perspective, until the back of the guard's van covered the train, finally the lamps, the two buffers, and a coiled up gas connection--and a long stretch of shining steel rails that converged to a point. He wanted to run along that iron way, to catch that train, to get away from this terrible desolation creeping over him. He stood, lonely and miserable, in a crowd of shouting boys and porters struggling with luggage. Just outside the station, beyond the white palings where the ticket collector stood, was a waggonette packed with boys of all ages. John looked at them curiously. They were to be his companions, to form his life in the coming years. In Amasia he had looked forward to mingling with boys of his own age and race, but now their noisy behaviour and boisterous good humour repelled him. He thought how much preferable was Ali with his quiet oriental manner. There was also another disconcerting experience which depressed him--his new clothes irritated him. He had worn trousers for a week now and hated them. His waistcoat was like a chain round his chest and he wanted to tear the vile Eton collar from his throat in rage. He longed for his loose open shirt, his easy shorts and socks. There were other clothes packed away in that white wooden box, with black iron flanges. John stared at his initials, black-lettered on the front--"J.N.D."--did they belong to him? Somehow they seemed to shout at him, to possess him, and the "N" in the middle grew and swelled until it dwarfed its companions. John was terribly afraid of that "N". Why hadn't the porter stuck the luggage label over it? He recalled what that awful boy, at the house where his father went to dine one day, had said, when he told him his name. "Narcissus! Good Lord, you will get ragged!" "Ragged--what's that?" he had asked. "Oh--knocked about--chivied." And then, in a friendly tone, "You'd better keep that name quiet." John must have stood thinking on the platform for a considerable time. It was almost empty. He would walk back to the school. His housemaster's wife had asked him to have tea with her. He instinctively liked Mrs. Fletcher. She was motherly and there was such a pleasant ring in her voice, also she was beautiful and probably young. Her cheeks were very fresh, as if she had walked in the wind all day, and John liked the style in which she did her hair. Fletcher too had attracted him, though he had not been able to notice him much, for his father had talked to him about Eastern affairs.