It was in the school debating society that John made his great discovery. Mr. Fletcher was in the chair. The meeting was in the lecture theatre with its tiers of seats climbing up to the back windows, in one of which John sat listening. There was a mock government in office, trying to introduce a bill for compulsory military training. The debate was opened by the captain of the Officers' Training Corps, a man John disliked intensely, mainly because he had prominent teeth that were not prolonged on parallel lines. John had attended three meetings of the society, but had not spoken. The small boys sat silent in the presence of the sixth form gods. John would not have spoken on this occasion except for an accident. He was sitting on the window seat, jammed in between two other boys, who, in the course of an attack upon each other's head, ejected John from his position. He fell with an amazing noise on the hollow boarding, and the Speaker, looking up, caught John's eye. The boy had no intention of speaking but Mr. Fletcher evidently misconstrued his action, and very kindly paused to give John his opportunity. So there was nothing else for him to do but to open his mouth. He stammered for half a minute, uttered a witticism and provoked a laugh, which encouraged him to proceed to a superb piece of youthful cynicism. The house gasped, but liked the sensation; the leader of the debate sat amazed at the junior's audacity. But John had tasted blood. He felt the flattery of the attention he was commanding. He grew bolder. A few of Marsh's grandiloquent phrases came into his head, odd readings from those leather-bound books pointed his arguments gracefully, his ear for a choice phrase kept his listeners intent. At the end of ten minutes John sat down abruptly. There was a great silence. He had made a fool of himself, he thought, and was blushing with shame when the tide of applause caught him. It seemed to rock the theatre. He was being applauded, the whole theatre was applauding him! He was no longer a nonentity, but somebody! It dazed him a little. For the next half hour he heard his name mentioned in the debate. When they all trooped out of the theatre, he was smiled at, and patted on the back. The crowning moment came when Mr. Fletcher looked at him closely through his spectacles and said-- "I hardly like to approve of your audacity, Dean, but I am pleased that my house has such an eloquent representative. I'm afraid the bitterness of your spirit suggests a misspent youth and the convictions of a Labour leader." And with a good-natured smile, in which John detected whole-hearted approval, Fletcher passed on.