"It's better," said Kennedy. "Keener, at any rate. We shall do our best in the house-matches. But we aren't a good team." "Any more trouble about your being captain instead of Fenn?" "No. We both sign the lists now. Fenn didn't want to, but I thought it would be a good idea, so we tried it. It seems to have worked all right." "Of course, your getting your first has probably made a difference." "A bit, perhaps." "Well, I hope you won't get the footer cup, because I want it for Blackburn's. Or the cricket cup. I want that, too. But you can have the sports' cup with my blessing." "Thanks," said Kennedy. "It's very generous of you." "Don't mention it," said Jimmy. From which conversation it will be seen that Kay's was gradually pulling itself together. It had been asleep for years. It was now waking up. When the winter term ended, there were distinct symptoms of an outbreak of public spirit in the house. The Easter term opened auspiciously in one way. Neither Walton nor Perry returned. The former had been snapped up in the middle of the holidays--to his enormous disgust--by a bank, which wanted his services so much that it was prepared to pay him 40 pounds a year simply to enter the addresses of its outgoing letters in a book, and post them when he had completed this ceremony. After a spell of this he might hope to be transferred to another sphere of bank life and thought, and at the end of his first year he might even hope for a rise in his salary of ten pounds, if his conduct was good, and he had not been late on more than twenty mornings in the year. I am aware that in a properly-regulated story of school-life Walton would have gone to the Eckleton races, returned in a state of speechless intoxication, and been summarily expelled; but facts are facts, and must not be tampered with. The ingenious but not industrious Perry had been superannuated. For three years he had been in the Lower Fourth. Probably the master of that form went to the Head, and said that his constitution would not stand another year of him, and that either he or Perry must go. So Perry had departed. Like a poor play, he had "failed to attract," and was withdrawn. There was also another departure of an even more momentous nature. Mr Kay had left Eckleton. Kennedy was no longer head of Kay's. He was now head of Dencroft's. Mr Dencroft was one of the most popular masters in the school. He was a keen athlete and a tactful master. Fenn and Kennedy knew him well, through having played at the nets and in scratch games with him. They both liked him. If Kennedy had had to select a house-master, he would have chosen Mr Blackburn first. But Mr Dencroft would have been easily second. Fenn learned the facts from the matron, and detailed them to Kennedy. "Kay got the offer of a headmastership at a small school in the north, and jumped at it. I pity the fellows there. They are going to have a lively time."