Upper Fifth, with the object of awarding to the most deserving--or,
perhaps, to the least undeserving--the handsome prize bequeathed by his
open-handed highness, the Rajah of Seltzerpore.

This gentleman sat with his legs stretched beneath the Headmaster's
generous table. Dinner had come to an end, and a cup of coffee, acting
in co-operation with several glasses of port and an excellent cigar,
had inspired him to hold forth on the subject of poetry prizes. He held
forth.

'The poetry prize system,' said he--it is astonishing what nonsense a
man, ordinarily intelligent, will talk after dinner--'is on exactly the
same principle as those penny-in-the-slot machines that you see at
stations. You insert your penny. You set your prize subject. In the
former case you hope for wax vestas, and you get butterscotch. In the
latter, you hope for something at least readable, and you get the most
complete, terrible, uninspired twaddle that was ever written on paper.
The boy mind'--here the ash of his cigar fell off on to his
waistcoat--'the merely boy mind is incapable of poetry.'

From which speech the shrewd reader will infer that Mr Mortimer Wells
was something of a prig. And perhaps, altogether shrewd reader, you're
right.

Mr Lawrie, the master of the Sixth, who had been asked to dinner to
meet the great man, disagreed as a matter of principle. He was one of
those men who will take up a cause from pure love of argument.

'I think you're wrong, sir. I'm perfectly convinced you're wrong.'