So the babble went on. To Arthur Robinson, still nervously perusing the time-table, it all sounded like an echo of the talk which had prevailed in the Pupil Room at his own school barely five years ago. Presently a fresh-faced elderly man crossed the room and tapped him on the shoulder. "You must be Robinson," he said. "My name is Pollard, also of St. Crispin's. Come and dine with me to-night, and tell me how the old College is getting on." The ice broken, the grateful Arthur was introduced to some of his colleagues, including the Olympian Dumaresq, the sarcastic Wellings, and the peppery Warwick. Next moment a bell began to ring upon the other side of the quadrangle, as there was a general move for the door. Outside, Arthur Robinson encountered the Head. "Good morning, Mr. Robinson!" (It was a little affectation of the Head's to address his colleagues as 'Mr.' when in cap and gown: at other times his key-note was informal bonhomie). "Have you your form-room key?" "Yes, I have." "In that case I will introduce you to your flock." At the end of the Cloisters, outside the locked door of Remove B, lounged some thirty young gentlemen. At the sight of the Head these ceased to lounge, and came to an attitude of uneasy attention. The door being opened, all filed demurely in and took their seats, looking virtuously down their noses. The Head addressed the intensely respectable audience before him. "This is Mr. Robinson," he said gruffly. "Do what you can for him." He nodded abruptly to Robinson, and left the room. As the door closed, the angel faces of Remove B relaxed. "A-a-a-a-a-ah!" said everybody, with a sigh of intense relief. Let us follow the example of the Head, and leave Arthur Robinson, for the present, to struggle in deep and unfathomed waters. NUMBER TWO THE EXPERTS Mr. Dumaresq was reputed to be the hardest slave-driver in Eaglescliffe. His eyes were cold and china blue, and his voice was like the neighing of a war-horse. He disapproved of the system of locked form-rooms--it wasted at least forty seconds, he said, getting the boys in--so he made his head boy keep the key and open the door the moment the clock struck. Consequently, when upon this particular morning Mr. Dumaresq stormed into his room, every boy was sitting at his desk. "Greek prose scraps!" he roared, while still ten yards from the door. Instantly each boy seized a sheet of school paper, and having torn it into four pieces selected one of the pieces and waited, pen in hand. "_If you do this_," announced Mr. Dumaresq truculently, as he swung into the doorway, "_you will be wise_." Every boy began to scribble madly. "_If you do not do this_," continued Mr. Dumaresq, "_you will not be wise. If you were to do this you would be wise. If you were not to do this you would not be wise. If you had done this you would have been wise. If you had not done this you would not have been wise_. Collect!"