Next morning Arthur Robinson invested himself in an extremely new B.A. gown, which seemed very long and voluminous after the tattered and attenuated garment which he had worn at Cambridge--usually twisted into a muffler round his neck--and walked up to School. (It was the last time he ever walked: thereafter, for many years, he left five minutes later, and ran.) Timidly he entered the Common Room. It was full of masters, some twenty or thirty of them, old, young, and middle-aged. As many as possible were grouped round the fire--not in the orderly, elegant fashion of grown-up persons; but packed together right inside the fender, with their backs against the mantelpiece. Nearly everyone was talking, and hardly anyone was listening to anyone else. Two or three--portentously solemn elderly men--were conferring darkly together in a corner. Others were sitting upon the table or arms of chairs, reading newspapers, mostly aloud. No one took the slightest notice of Arthur Robinson, who accordingly sidled into an unoccupied corner and embarked upon a self-conscious study of last term's time-table. "I hear they have finished the new Squash Courts," announced a big man who was almost sitting upon the fire. "Take you on this afternoon, Jacker?" "Have you got a court?" inquired the gentleman addressed. "Not yet, but I will. Who is head of Games this term?" [Illustration: THE LUNCHEON INTERVAL PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN WHO HAS SCORED FIFTY RUNS] "Etherington major, I think." "Good Lord! He can hardly read or write, much less manage anything. I wonder why boys always make a point of electing congenital idiots to their responsible offices. Warwick, isn't old Etherington in your House?" "He is," replied Warwick, looking up from a newspaper. "Just tell him I want a Squash Court this afternoon, will you?" "I am not a District Messenger Boy," replied Mr. Warwick coldly. Then he turned upon a colleague who was attempting to read his newspaper over his shoulder. "Andrews," he said, "if you wish to read this newspaper I shall be happy to hand it over to you. If not, I shall be grateful if you will refrain from masticating your surplus breakfast in my right ear." Mr. Andrews, scarlet with indignation, moved huffily away, and the conversation continued. "I doubt if you will get a court, Dumaresq," said another voice--a mild one. "I asked for one after breakfast, and Etherington said they were all bagged." "Well, I call that the limit!" bellowed that single-minded egotist, Mr. Dumaresq. "After all," drawled a supercilious man sprawling across a chair, "the courts were built for the boys, weren't they?" "They may have been built for the boys," retorted Dumaresq with heat, "but they were more than half paid for by the masters. So put that in your pipe, friend Wellings, and----" "Your trousers are beginning to smoke," interpolated Wellings calmly. "You had better come out of the fender for a bit and let me in."