Chiefly, though, they talked with the Head, who was father-confessor and agent-general to them all; for what they shouted in their unthinking youth, they proved in their thoughtless manhood--to wit, that the Prooshan Bates was “a downy bird.” Young blood who had stumbled into an entanglement with a pastry-cook’s daughter at Plymouth; experience who had come into a small legacy but mistrusted lawyers; ambition halting at cross-roads, anxious to take the one that would lead him farthest; extravagance pursued by the money-lender; arrogance in the thick of a regimental row--each carried his trouble to the Head; and Chiron showed him, in language quite unfit for little boys, a quiet and safe way round, out, or under. So they overflowed his house, smoked his cigars, and drank his health as they had drunk it all the earth over when two or three of the old school had foregathered. “Don’t stop smoking for a minute,” said the Head. “The more you’re out of training the better for us. I’ve demoralized the First Fifteen with extra-tu.” “Ah, but we’re a scratch lot. Have you told ’em we shall need a substitute even if Crandall can play?” said a Lieutenant of Engineers with a D.S.O. to his credit. “He wrote me he’d play, so he can’t have been much hurt. He’s coming down to-morrow morning.” “Crandall minor that was, and brought off poor Duncan’s body?” The Head nodded. “Where are you going to put him? We’ve turned you out of house and home already, Head Sahib.” This was a Squadron Commander of Bengal Lancers, home on leave. “I’m afraid he’ll have to go up to his old dormitory. You know old boys can claim that privilege. Yes, I think little Crandall minor must bed down there once more.” “Bates Sahib “--a Gunner flung a heavy arm round the Head’s neck--“you’ve got something up your sleeve. Confess! I know that twinkle.” “Can’t you see, you cuckoo?” a Submarine Miner interrupted. “Crandall goes up to the dormitory as an object-lesson, for moral effect and so forth. Isn’t that true, Head Sahib?” “It is. You know too much, Purvis. I licked you for that in ’79.” “You did, sir, and it’s my private belief you chalked the cane.” “N-no. But I’ve a very straight eye. Perhaps that misled you.” That opened the flood-gates of fresh memories, and they all told tales out of school. When Crandall minor that was--Lieutenant R. Crandall of an ordinary Indian regiment--arrived from Exeter on the morning of the match, he was cheered along the whole front of the College, for the prefects had repeated the sense of that which the Head had read them in Flint’s study. When Prout’s house understood that he would claim his Old Boy’s right to a bed for one night, Beetle ran into King’s house next door and executed a public “gloat” up and down the enemy’s big form-room, departing in a haze of ink-pots.