grateful for the knowledge placed at his disposal with such lavish
solicitude.

"You'll get six of the very best, over the back of a chair," said
one.

"They'll draw a chalk line across you, of course you know," said
another.

"A chalk line?"

"Rather. So that every cut can be aimed exactly at the same spot.
It hurts much more that way."

Lancelot tried to nourish a wan hope that there might be an element
of exaggeration in this uncomfortably realistic description.

Meanwhile in the prefects' room at the other end of the passage,
Comus Bassington and a fellow prefect sat also waiting on time, but
in a mood of far more pleasurable expectancy. Comus was one of the
most junior of the prefect caste, but by no means the least well-
known, and outside the masters' common-room he enjoyed a certain
fitful popularity, or at any rate admiration. At football he was
too erratic to be a really brilliant player, but he tackled as if
the act of bringing his man headlong to the ground was in itself a
sensuous pleasure, and his weird swear-words whenever he got hurt
were eagerly treasured by those who were fortunate enough to hear
them. At athletics in general he was a showy performer, and
although new to the functions of a prefect he had already
established a reputation as an effective and artistic caner. In