It was during the end of the Easter and the whole of the summer term that Gordon earned a reputation for reckless bravado and disregard of all authority that stuck to him through his whole career. Up till now he had done things merely because he had wanted to. He followed the inclination of the moment, but now it was different. It is pleasant to be talked of as a mixture between Don Juan and Puck; and Gordon was sufficiently good at games to make himself an attractive and not a repulsive figure. The Public School boy admires the Meredith type; he despises the man who is no good at games, and who plays fast and loose in his house. Gordon was not unpopular, and indeed some of his escapades were really funny, as, for instance, when he cut through the string of the chapel organ on which a weight is attached to show whether the organ is full of air or not. The next morning in chapel the choir began but the organ was mute. The hymn broke off into a miserable wail. The whole service was one silent ripple of merriment. Rogers was taking the service, and was quite at sea without the help of music. Gordon earned a considerable measure of notoriety for the performance. On his way to the tuck shop, Ben, the captain of the Fifteen, came up and spoke to him. "Caruthers, I say, are you the man who made the organ mute?" "Yes." "By Jove, you are a sportsman." Gordon was thus encouraged to continue on his road to buffoonery, and when the summer term came, he found no reason to pursue any other course. On the cricket field he could not get a run; first he hit wildly, then he began to poke; but all without the least success. After a few weeks he almost ceased to try, except in House matches. "The Bull" got furious. "Look here, Caruthers," he said, "I don't know if you are slack, or merely incompetent. But when I see you make fifty against my house in a Junior House match, and then play inside half-volleys on the upper, I begin to think all you care about is your house. Don't you care for Fernhurst, boy?" Gordon was genuinely worried about this. He admired "the Bull" immensely: indeed, "the Bull" was about the only person at Fernhurst whose opinion he valued at all. He made strenuous efforts to get runs, but it was no use. He was clean out of form. His fifty _v._ Buller's was his only score during the season, but "the Bull" did not know this. He thought Caruthers tried for his house and slacked with the Colts. The climax was reached during the Milton Match. Gordon went in first with Foster. In five minutes he and Lovelace and a man from Claremont's were out for four runs. "The Bull" chewed grass in a far corner of the field. And then, to crown everything, Gordon missed the easiest of catches. He caught Lovelace's eye. It was really rather funny. The two of them burst into sudden laughter. Lovelace was nearly doubled up. "The Bull" thought they were laughing at him.