interested such of them as had the saving grace of humour at their
disposal, but if they sighed when he passed from their immediate
responsibility it was a sigh of relief rather than of regret. The
more enlightened and experienced of them realised that he was
something outside the scope of the things that they were called
upon to deal with. A man who has been trained to cope with storms,
to foresee their coming, and to minimise their consequences, may be
pardoned if he feels a certain reluctance to measure himself
against a tornado.

Men of more limited outlook and with a correspondingly larger
belief in their own powers were ready to tackle the tornado had
time permitted.

"I think I could tame young Bassington if I had your
opportunities," a form-master once remarked to a colleague whose
House had the embarrassing distinction of numbering Comus among its
inmates.

"Heaven forbid that I should try," replied the housemaster.

"But why?" asked the reformer.

"Because Nature hates any interference with her own arrangements,
and if you start in to tame the obviously untameable you are taking
a fearful responsibility on yourself."

"Nonsense; boys are Nature's raw material."

"Millions of boys are. There are just a few, and Bassington is one