The Two Cock was always played a fortnight after the Thirds, and during that fortnight the outhouses had to play off among themselves three preliminary rounds. For them it was a remarkably strenuous time. The two best outhouses sides had, in fact, to play four house matches in twelve days. But it was possible for the School House to take things easily for at least half a week. And these three days out of training meant a lot to Gordon and others, who would have to play not only in the Two Cock, but most probably in the Three Cock as well. It prevented staleness; and staleness was the great danger that all outhouse sides had to face. The week after the Thirds was regarded as a fairly slack time before the strenuous week that culminated in the Two Cock. There would probably be only one game--on the Saturday; and that a short quarter-of-an-hour-each-way affair. It was usually a quite uneventful time. This term, however, an occurrence took place that had a big effect on the growth of Gordon's character. Finnemore had caught influenza; the Chief had to go for a week to Oxford. The Sixth was at a loose end. Various masters took it in various subjects, or at least were supposed to. Most of the week was spent in the studies, as the master in charge forgot to turn up. One afternoon, Ferrers was to take them in English. But Ferrers was engaged in writing an article on the "New Public School Boy" for _The Cornhill Magazine_, and wanted to be quiet. He sent the form to their studies to write an essay on a typical Ferrers subject: "Poetry is in the first instance the outpouring of a rebel." It had to be shown up by six o'clock. Gordon revelled in it. During the long afternoon he poured out his fierce soul. His life was now a strange paradox. Half the time he thought of poetry, worshipping any sort of rebellion against the conventional standards of living. At other times he was like the ordinary Philistine, blindly worshipping games, never seeing that they led nowhere, and were as a blind alley. This afternoon Gordon forgot everything but Swinburne, Byron, Rossetti, and the poets of revolt. He stigmatised Wordsworth as a doddering old man, not knowing that his return to nature was the greatest revolution in English literature. In a text-book he saw Shelley described as a rebel. He got a copy of his works out of the library, but found little there resembling the work of his own favourite. However, he quoted a verse out of _O World, O Life, O Time!_ and decided to search more deeply later on. The bulk of the essay was a glowing eulogy of _The Hymn to Proserpine_ and _Don Juan_. It was very dogmatic, very absurd in parts, but it had the merit of enthusiasm, and, at any rate, showed a genuine appreciation of a certain class of literature. Well satisfied, he made his way across to the Sixth Form room, and found Ferrers gazing at a pile of papers, as Hercules must have gazed at the Augean stables. "Um," said Ferrers, "who are you?"