"You know, Caruthers," said Tester in second hall, "whatever our personal feelings may be, we have got to allow that this man Ferrers has got something in him." "Something! Why, I thought him simply glorious. Here he is bursting in on the prude conventionality of Fernhurst full of new ideas, smashing up the things that have been accepted unquestionably for years. By Jove, the rest of the staff must hate him." "There was a thing by him in the _A.M.A._ the other day that caused considerable annoyance, I believe. I didn't read the thing myself, but I heard 'the Bull' saying it was disgraceful that a Fernhurst master should be allowed to say such things. I suppose he said something against games." "Well, damn it all, if he did, he is in the wrong. Games are absolutely necessary. What on earth would the country be like without them?" "A damned sight better, I should think." "Oh, don't be an ass. Just look at the fellows who don't play games, Rudd and Co. What wrecks they are! Utterly useless. We could do perfectly well without them. Could not we now?" At this point Betteridge strolled in very leisurely. Authority had made him a dignified person. The days of ragging Trundle seemed very distant. He did not go about with Mansell so much now. He was more often with Carter and Harding. "Betteridge, come in and sit down," said Tester; "we were arguing on the value of games. Don't you agree with me that it's about time a man like Ferrers made a sensible attack on them?" "Yes; though I doubt if Ferrers is quite the man to do it. He is such a revolutionary. He would want to smash everything at once. A gradual change is what is needed. I look at it like this. Games are all right in themselves. A man must keep himself physically fit; but games are only a means to an end. The object of all progress is to get a clear, clean-sighted race, intellectual and broadminded. And I think physical fitness is a great help in the production of a clear, clean mind. The very clever man who is weak bodily is so apt to become a decadent; and because he himself can't stand any real exertion, despises those who can. Games are necessary as a means to an end. But Buller and all the rest of the lot think games are the actual end. Look at the way a man with his footer cap is idealised and worshipped. He may be an utter rake; probably is, most likely he has no brains at all. If he ever had them, he soon ceased to use them, and devotes all his energies to athletic success. Why should we worship him? Merely because he can kick a rotten football down a rotten field. It is this worship of athletics that is so wrong."