parts beyond the equator.

It was ten o'clock by the time the front door of Kay's closed upon its
new head. Kennedy went to the matron's sanctum to be instructed in the
geography of the house. The matron, a severe lady, whose faith in
human nature had been terribly shaken by five years of office in
Kay's, showed him his dormitory and study with a lack of geniality
which added a deeper tinge of azure to Kennedy's blues. "So you've
come to live here, have you?" her manner seemed to say; "well, I pity
you, that's all. A nice time _you're_ going to have."

Kennedy spent the half-hour before going to bed in unpacking his box
for the second time, and arranging his books and photographs in the
study which had been Wayburn's. He had nothing to find fault with in
the study. It was as large as the one he had owned at Blackburn's,
and, like it, looked out over the school grounds.

At half-past ten the gas gave a flicker and went out, turned off at
the main. Kennedy lit a candle and made his way to his dormitory.
There now faced him the more than unpleasant task of introducing
himself to its inmates. He knew from experience the disconcerting way
in which a dormitory greets an intruder. It was difficult to know how
to begin matters. It would take a long time, he thought, to explain
his presence to their satisfaction.

Fortunately, however, the dormitory was not unprepared. Things get
about very quickly in a house. The matron had told the housemaids; the
housemaids had handed it on to their ally, the boot boy; the boot boy
had told Wren, whom he happened to meet in the passage, and Wren had
told everybody else.