sweat across the moor what they call 'observing the animal creation in
its own haunts.' They like one to grind over beastesses and butterflies
and suchlike."

"I know a lot about them," boasted Ishmael.

"Then you'd better keep your mouth shut about it, that's all I can say,
or the fellows will think you're a prig. It was all right when it was
started because the fellows were keen on it themselves, but then the
masters took it up, and of course we had to drop it. We're off bugs in
this shop."

Ishmael digested in silence the profundity of the point of view thus
presented to him, and, according to his habit, quickly made it part of
his practice. For his first weeks at school he kept very silent,
absorbing its traditions and the unwritten laws made by the boys
themselves, on the nice observance of which hung respect and popularity.

The Grammar School of St. Renny was an old-fashioned affair even for
those days, but it had a certain name in a quiet way. It was run on
classical lines, Greek and Latin being considered the only two subjects
worth a gentleman's attention. Botany and entomology were the unofficial
subjects that had won the school its name, but Ishmael soon found that
to show any keenness for these two pursuits was to class yourself a
prig. The robuster natures preferred rod and line, or line only, in the
waters of Bolowen Pool to any dalliance with stink-pots and specimen
cases. Like far greater schools, it was really run by the traditions
evolved by the boys. There were certain things that were the thing and
certain other things that were not the thing, and these varied
occasionally. One term you simply had to wear a dark blue-and-white tie