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Both were to be sung without accompaniment. If the house-master happened to be musical he generally undertook the training of the choir: but if he were not, then a head boy took it on. The standard achieved was, as a rule, remarkably good.
Over this motley assembly was set as house-master a ferocious Scotchman of great parts, but no discretion; and there were assistants, too, of scholarship and refinement, who, if they had had the genius for education, without which these things are nothing, might have put humanity into some of us. When it was past the time I discovered this, and one of them became my friend and helper.
He would have liked to have followed him, taken back what he had said, and formed an offensive alliance against the black sheep of the house and also, which was just as important, against the slack sheep, who were good for nothing, either at work or play. But his bitterness against the house-master prevented him.
Barges bearing flowers and decorations for the fête, fruits and game, were unloading on the broad marble steps, and through the wrought open-work of the splendid gates a scene of activity was disclosed in the nearer court which served as an office for the various departments of the household; while the house-master had come down the steps from his cozy lodge beside the entrance, and stood dispensing orders to a group of eager domestics.
He did not quite know what to say or do with regard to his new house-master at this their first meeting in the latter's territory. "Come aboard, sir," occurred to him for a moment as a happy phrase, but he discarded it.
"You boys down there," said the voice, "come here immediately. Come here, I say." It was the well-known voice of Mr Robert Dexter, O'Hara and Moriarty's beloved house-master. The two Irishmen simultaneously clutched one another, each afraid that the other would think from force of long habit that the house-master was speaking to him. Both stood where they were.
They will leave, instead to-day. The third boy is much younger. Because of his youth, I have been persuaded by his house-master to give him a further chance." Again he paused. Then he exclaimed loudly, "Scaife!" Scaife stood up, very pale. "Here, sir!" "Scaife, you will go into the Fourth Form Room, and prepare to receive the punishment which no member of the Eleven should ever deserve."
A house-master who enters into the life of his house, coaches them in games if an athlete or, if not an athlete, watches the games, umpiring at cricket and refereeing at football, never finds much difficulty in keeping order.
He was next man in; so, directly the departure of the previous head of Blackburn's left a vacancy, he stepped into it, and the machinery of the house had gone on as smoothly as if there had been no change at all. But Kennedy had gone in against a slack and antagonistic house, with weak prefects to help him, and a fussy house-master; and he had fought them all for a term, and looked like winning.
By the time he returned from his room I had tea served in my boudoir, and while we sat facing the open door to the balcony he told me about his visit to his old school; how at the dinner on the previous night the Principal had proposed his health, and after the lads had sung "Forty Years On" he had told them yarns about his late expedition until they made the long hiss of indrawn breath which is peculiar to boys when they are excited; how they had followed him to his bedroom as if he had been the Pied Piper of Hamelin and questioned him and clambered over him until driven off by the house-master; and how, finally, before he was out of bed this morning the smallest scholar in the junior house, a tiny little cherub with the face of his mother, had come knocking at his door to ask if he wanted a cabin boy.
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