As Gordon walked back alone, he had the unpleasant feeling that the best was over, that the days of ragging, of footer, of Claremont, of Trundle had gone beyond recall. The friends of his first term, Hunter, Lovelace, Mansell, they had all gone, scattered to the winds. He alone remained, and with a sudden pain he wondered whether he had not outlived his day, whether, like Tithonus, he was not taking more than he had been meant to take. But then, as he walked through the small gateway, and majestically wandered up the Chief's drive, he reflected that, even if his splendour was a lonely one, without the laughter and comradeship he could have wished for, yet it was none the less a splendour. He must hold on. As Mansell had said, he must make the best of it while he had it. A small boy came up nervously. "Please, Caruthers, may I have leave off games for a week? I have had a bad foot." "Did Matron say so?" "Oh yes." "All right, then." He walked up the stairs to his study, smiling to himself. What had he been fretting himself about? He had his power. He had the things he had wanted. "_Is it not brave to be a king?_ _Is it not passing brave to be a king_ _And ride in triumph through Persepolis?_" Marlowe had been right, Marlowe with the pagan soul that loved material things, glitter and splendour, crowns and roses, red lips and gleaming arms. "_A god is not so glorious as a king ..._ _To ask and have, command and be obeyed._" And there was no doubt he was a king. He must make the best of his kingdom while he held it. CHAPTER II: SETTING STARS The same atmosphere of monotonous depression that overhung football soon began to affect the military side of school life as well. At first there had been the spur of novelty. The substitution of platoon drill for the old company routine and the frequent field days led to keenness. But even the most energetic get weary of doing exactly the same thing three times a week. There are only three different formations in platoon drill, which anyone can learn in half-an-hour; and the days were long past when Gordon's extraordinary commands would form his platoon into an impossible rabble that could only be extricated by the ungrammatical but effective command that School House section commanders had used from the first day of militarism: "As you did ought." Those days were over. No mistakes. For thirty-five minutes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday the School House platoon would move round the courts in lifeless and perfect formation. And by now the School had begun to suspect that the field days were conducted mainly to satisfy Rogers's inordinate conceit. His house had always the advantage. The limit of endurance was reached one day early in November, when Rogers took his house out to defend Babylon Hill against the rest of the corps.