"What a lot he has got," says Miss Brown, in an undertone now. "Was he a great athlete?" "He thinks he was. When he gets in a bait over anything it is always a sound plan to get him to talk about one of these rotten things. I once got off a tanning by asking him how many times he had been Head of the River. As a matter of fact, most of these are prizes for chess, or tricycling, or something like that." So the joyous libel proceeds. Master Reggie is beginning to cheer up a little. "What is that silver bowl for?" inquires his sister. "Ah, it takes him about half an hour to tell you about that. They won the race by two feet in record time, and he was in a dead faint for a week afterwards. As a matter of fact, Bailey tertius, whose governor was up at Oxford with the old Filbert"--etymologists will have no difficulty in tracing this synonym to its source--"says that he saw the race, and that Filbert caught a crab and lost his oar about five yards from the start and was a passenger all the way. The men on the bank yelled to him to jump out, but he was in too big a funk of being drowned, and wouldn't. Of course he doesn't know we know!" And so the joyous libel proceeds. And yet, in Reggie Brown's last half-term report we find the words: _A conscientious, but somewhat stolid and unimaginative boy._ II But "people" do not visit the School solely for the purpose of bringing social disaster upon their offspring. Their first visit, at any rate, is of a very different nature. On this occasion they come in the capacity of what Headmasters call "prospective parents"--that is, parents who propose to inspect the School with a view to entering a boy--and as such are treated with the deference due to imperfectly hooked fish. The prospective parent varies considerably. Sometimes he is an old member of the School, and his visit is a purely perfunctory matter. He knows every inch of the place. He lunches with the Head, has a talk about old times, and mentions with proper pride that yet another of his boys is now of an age to take up his nomination for his father's old House. * * * * * Then comes another type--the youthful parent. Usually he brings his wife with him. He is barely forty, and has not been near a school since he left his own twenty years ago. His wife is pretty, and not thirty-five. Both feel horribly juvenile in the presence of the Head. They listen deferentially to the great man's pontifical observations upon the requirements of modern education, and answer his queries as to their firstborn's age and attainments with trembling exactitude. "I think we shall be able to lick him into shape," concludes the Head, with gracious jocularity. It is mere child's play to him, handling parents of this type. Then the male bird plucks up courage, and timidly asks a leading question. The Head smiles.