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To him an Eton boy, of corresponding years, severely observed, "Well, you Harrow fellows needn't be so beastly cocky. When you wanted a Head Master you had to come to Eton to get one." The small Harrovian was dumfounded for a moment, and then, pulling himself together for a final effort of deadly sarcasm, exclaimed, "Well, at any rate, no one can say that we ever produced a Mr. Gladstone."
John, inordinately grateful at this recognition of himself as an Harrovian, forgave the gibe. It had struck him, also, that the shallow straw hat, the swallow-tail coat, did look queer, but he regarded them reverently as the uniform of a crack corps. To-day, standing by the iron palings, John reviewed the events of the last hour. The view was blurred by unshed tears.
Far from being pleased at the offer of a bribe, the manager of the Imperial, an old Harrovian, raised his foot, and Hamar, who invariably paled at the prospect of violence, hurriedly withdrew. On the eve of the initiation into Stage Three, the trio were very much perturbed. "I hope to goodness nothing will appear to me," Kelson said.
His eyes sparkled out of a cheery, bearded face. Look at him well. An Harrovian of the Harrovians this. His grandfathers on the maternal and paternal side had been friends at Harrow in Byron's time. The Rev. Septimus wore rather a shabby coat and a terrible hat, but the consummate Caterpillar, who respected pedigrees, regarded him with pride and veneration.
He deplored the increasing predominance of sons of very rich men. And he anathematized Harrovian fathers who were persuaded by Etonian wives to send their sons to the Plain instead of to the Hill. That some of the famous Harrow families, who owed so much to the School, should forsake it, seemed to Egerton the unpardonable sin.
"My own," said the Caterpillar, modestly. "I don't often make a joke, but that's mine. Pass it on." The other Harrovian about to go in beckoned to Desmond. "Caesar won't be bowled first ball," said the Caterpillar. "He's the sort that rises to an emergency. Can't we find a seat?" They sat down and watched the Eton captain placing his field.
The Head Master was not an Harrovian, and on that account was the better able to perceive time-honoured abuses. At Harrow the dominant chord among masters and boys is a harmony of strenuousness and sentiment. Inevitably, the sentiment becomes, at times, sentimental; and then strenuousness pushes it into a corner.
The school songs play a great part in Harrow life. Generation after generation of boys have sung these songs, and they form a most potent bond of union between Harrovians of all ages, for their words and music are as familiar to the old Harrovian of sixty as to the present Harrovian of sixteen. Most of these songs are due to the genius of two men, Edward Bowen and John Farmer.
Before he had been there long he was joined by Carr, who carried a mackintosh over his arm. The two men nodded. The general rather liked Carr. He was a Harrovian, and the general's son was at Harrow. "Going to see it out on deck?" he inquired. "Rather. I'm not going to be drowned like a rat in a trap!" replied Carr, jovial still, and brave.
"Well, Agatha," he said, in that loud voice which, with all due deference, usually marks the Harrovian, "how many have you got for me? No rot now! I want my share, you know, eh?" Heedless of Luke's scowling presence, he held out his hand, encased in a very tight glove, asking with a good-natured jerk of the head for her programme.
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