A Labrador Doctor | Page 8

there were more ways than one leading to Rome.
The separate dwelling-houses were named A, B, and C. I was detailed
to C House, the old inn itself. Each house was again divided into three,
with its own house master, and its own special colour and badges. Our
three were at the time "Sharps," "Upcutts," and "Bakers." Our
particular one occupied the second floor, and was reached by great oak
staircases, which, if you were smart, you could ascend at about six
steps at a time. This was often a singular desideratum, because until

you reached the fifth form, according to law you ascended by the less
direct back stairway.
Our colours were white and maroon, and our sign a bishop's
mitre--which effigy I still find scribbled all over the few book relics
which I have retained, and which emblem, when borne subsequently on
my velvet football cap, proved to be the nearest I ever was to approach
to that dignified insignia.
My benefactor, on the night of my arrival, having done more for me
than a new boy could expect of an old one, was whirled off in the
stream of his returning chums long before I had found my resting-place
for the night. The dormitory to which I at last found myself assigned
contained no less than twenty-five beds, and seemed to me a veritable
wilderness. If the coaches which used to stop here could have ascended
the stairs, it might have accommodated several. What useful purpose it
could have served in those far-off days I never succeeded in deciding.
The room most nearly like it which I can recall is the old dining-hall of
a great manor, into which the knights in armour rode on horseback to
meals, that being far less trouble than removing one's armour, and quite
as picturesque. More or less amicably I obtained possession of a bed in
a good location, under a big window which looked out over the
beautiful gardens below. I cannot remember that I experienced any of
those heart-searchings or forebodings which sentiment deplores as the
inevitable lot of the unprotected innocent.
One informal battle during the first week with a boy possessed of the
sanctity of having come up from the lower school, and therefore being
an "old boy," achieved for me more privileges than the actual decision
perhaps entitled one to enjoy, namely, being left alone. I subsequently
became known as the "Beast," owing to my belligerent nature and the
undue copiousness of my hair.
The fact that I was placed in the upper fourth form condemned me to
do my "prep" in the intolerable barrack called "Big School"--a veritable
bear-garden to which about three hundred small boys were relegated to
study. Order was kept by a master and a few monitors, who wandered
to and fro from end to end of the building, while we were supposed to

work. For my part, I never tried it, partly because the work came very
easy to me, while the "repetition" was more readily learned from a
loose page at odd times like dinner and chapel, and partly because,
winning a scholarship during the term, I was transferred to a building
reserved for twenty-eight such privileged individuals until they gained
the further distinction of a place in the house class-room, by getting
their transfer into the fifth form.
Besides those who lived in the big quad there were several houses
outside the gates, known as "Out-Houses." The boys there fared a good
deal better than we who lived in college, and I presume paid more
highly for it. Our meals were served in "Big Hall," where the whole
four hundred of us were fed. The meals were exceptionally poor; so
much so that we boys at the beginning of term formed what we called
brewing companies--which provided as far as possible breakfasts and
suppers for ourselves all term. As a protection against early bankruptcy,
it was our custom to deposit our money with a rotund but popular
school official, known always by a corruption of his name as "the
Slug." Every Saturday night he would dole out to you your deposit
made on return from the holidays, divided into equal portions by the
number of weeks in the term. Once one was in the fifth form, brewing
became easy, for one had a right to a place on the class-room fire for
one's kettle or saucepan. Till then the space over gas stoves in Big
School being strictly limited, the right was only acquired "vi et armis."
Moreover, most of the fourth form boys and the "Shells," a class
between them and the fifth, if they had to work after evening chapel,
had to sit behind desks around the house class-room facing the centre,
in which as a rule the fifth