The walk of the dining-room were covered with photographs of the house
cricket and football teams for the last fifteen years. Looking at
them, he felt more than ever how entirely his school life had been
bound up in his house. From his first day at Eckleton he had been
taught the simple creed of the Blackburnite, that Eckleton was the
finest school in the three kingdoms, and that Blackburn's was the
finest house in the finest school.

Under the gas-bracket by the door hung the first photograph in which
he appeared, the cricket team of four years ago. He had just got the
last place in front of Challis on the strength of a tremendous catch
for the house second in a scratch game two days before the
house-matches began. It had been a glaring fluke, but it had impressed
Denny, the head of the house, who happened to see it, and had won him
his place.

He walked round the room, looking at each photograph in turn. It
seemed incredible that he had no longer any right to an interest in
the success of Blackburn's. He could have endured leaving all this
when his time at school was up, for that would have been the natural
result of the passing of years. But to be transplanted abruptly and
with a wrench from his native soil was too much. He went upstairs to
pack, suffering from as severe an attack of the blues as any youth of
eighteen had experienced since blues were first invented.

Jimmy Silver hovered round, while he packed, with expressions of
sympathy and bitter remarks concerning Mr Kay and his wicked works,
and, when the operation was concluded, helped Kennedy carry his box
over to his new house with the air of one seeing a friend off to the