One boy held his hands and another his legs, bending his body into a praying attitude. He fought like a demon, but to no purpose. They yanked his night-shirt up, while the monitor laid into him with the bristly side of a hairbrush. He addressed him between each blow. “That’s one for bullying a new-bug. And that’s another for fighting. And that’s another for being licked and getting in a funk, etc.” By the time they had done he was sobbing bitterly. Then the light went out. I suppose I ought to have been glad at being avenged; but I wasn’t. Somehow I felt that the big boys had punished him not from a sense of justice, but only because they were big and wanted to amuse themselves. Then I got to thinking what a long way off India was, and how dreadful it must make a boy feel never to see his father. It had been a long while dark in the dormitory and almost everyone was breathing heavily. I stretched out my hand across the narrow alley which separated me from the Bantam. “Bantam,” I whispered. He snuffled. “Bantam.” I felt his fingers clutch my hand. I crept out and put my arms about him. Then I got into his bed and curled up beside him, and so we both were comforted. CHAPTER III--THE WORLD OF BOYS The Bantam and I became great friends. He was a brave daredevil little chap, prematurely hardened by the absence of home influences to make the best of life’s vicissitudes. Within an hour of having been beaten, he would be gay again as ever. He was a soldier’s son, and never wasted time in pitying himself. He was greedy for joy, as I am to this day, and we contrived to find it together. Yet, when I look back, the making of happiness at the Red House seems to me to have been very much like manufacturing bricks without straw. I am amazed at our success. Very slight provision was made for our comfort. Our daily routine was in no way superior to that of a barrack; the only difference was that they drilled our heads instead of our arms and legs. The feminine influence was entirely lacking, and a good deal of brutality resulted. If the parents could have guessed half the shocking things that their fresh-faced innocent looking darlings did and said in the three months of each term that they were away from home, they would have been broken-hearted. And yet they might have guessed. For here were we, young animals in every stage of adolescence, herded together in class-rooms and dormitories, uninformed about ourselves, with only paid people to care for us.