Traill moved uncomfortably in his chair. He smiled across the flickering candles at Birkland. “Oh! I say,” he said, “that's a bit of exaggeration, isn't it? I suppose one is tired sometimes, of course; but, after all, there are a good many men in the country who make a pretty good thing out of mastering and are n't so very miserable.” It was evident that he thought that it was all a kind of joke on Birkland's part. He pulled contentedly at his pipe. But the other man went on: “I shouldn't have said this at all if I hadn't meant it, and if I hadn't got twenty years of experience behind me to prove what I say. I don't know why I'm bothering you, I'm sure; but now I've begun I'm going on, and you've got to listen. You can't say you haven't been given your chance. Have you ever looked round the common room and seen what kind of men they are?” “Of course,” said Traill; “but,” he added modestly, “I'm not observant, you know. I'm not at all a clever kind of chap.” “Well, you would have seen what I'm telling you written in their faces right enough. Mind you—what I'm saying to you doesn't apply to the first-class public school. That's a different kind of thing altogether. I'm talking about places like Moffatt's—places that are trying to be what they are not—to do what they can't do—to get higher than they can reach. There are thousands of them all over the country—places where the men are underpaid, with no prospects, herded together, all of them hating each other, wanting, perhaps, towards the end of term, to cut each other's throats. Do you suppose that that is good for the boys they teach?” He paused and relit his pipe, and his voice was, too, measured, but showing in its tensity his emotion. “It's a different thing with the bigger places. There, there is more room; the men don't live so close together; they are paid better; there is a chance of getting a house; there is the esprit de corps of the school... but here, my God!” Birkland bent forward, his face white, over the candles. “Get out of it, Traill, you fool! You say, in a year's time. Don't I know that? Do you suppose that I meant to stay here for ever when I came? But one postpones moving. Another term will be better, or you try for a thing, fail, and get discouraged... and then suddenly you are too old—too old at thirty-three—earning two hundred a year... too old! and liable to be turned out with a week's notice if the Head doesn't like you—turned out with nothing to go to; and he knows that you are afraid of him and he has games with you.” Traill stared at the little man's burning eyes. How odd of Birkland to talk like this!