gathered, regarded its isolation as a merit. He was not fond of
village society.

On the following morning, at eight o'clock, my work began.

My first day had the effect of entirely revolutionizing what ideas
I possessed of the lot of the private-school assistant-master.

My view, till then, had been that the assistant-master had an easy
time. I had only studied him from the outside. My opinion was
based on observations made as a boy at my own private school, when
masters were an enviable race who went to bed when they liked, had
no preparation to do, and couldn't be caned. It seemed to me then
that those three facts, especially the last, formed a pretty good
basis on which to build up the Perfect Life.

I had not been at Sanstead House two days before doubts began to
creep in on this point. What the boy, observing the assistant-master
standing about in apparently magnificent idleness, does not realize
is that the unfortunate is really putting in a spell of exceedingly
hard work. He is 'taking duty'. And 'taking duty' is a thing to be
remembered, especially by a man who, like myself, has lived a life
of fatted ease, protected from all the minor annoyances of life by
a substantial income.

Sanstead House educated me. It startled me. It showed me a hundred
ways in which I had allowed myself to become soft and inefficient,
without being aware of it. There may be other professions which
call for a fiercer display of energy, but for the man with a
private income who has loitered through life at his own pace, a