school life is conducted. At an early date, moreover, he gave signs of
what almost amounted to genius in the Indoor Game department. Now,
success in the field is a good thing, and undoubtedly makes for
popularity. But if you desire to command the respect and admiration of
your fellow-beings to a degree stretched almost to the point of
idolatry, make yourself proficient in the art of whiling away the hours
of afternoon school. Before Farnie's arrival, his form, the Upper
Fourth, with the best intentions in the world, had not been skilful
'raggers'. They had ragged in an intermittent, once-a-week sort of way.
When, however, he came on the scene, he introduced a welcome element of
science into the sport. As witness the following. Mr Strudwick, the
regular master of the form, happened on one occasion to be away for a
couple of days, and a stop-gap was put in in his place. The name of the
stop-gap was Mr Somerville Smith. He and Farnie exchanged an unspoken
declaration of war almost immediately. The first round went in Mr
Smith's favour. He contrived to catch Farnie in the act of performing
some ingenious breach of the peace, and, it being a Wednesday and a
half-holiday, sent him into extra lesson. On the following morning,
more by design than accident, Farnie upset an inkpot. Mr Smith observed
icily that unless the stain was wiped away before the beginning of
afternoon school, there would be trouble. Farnie observed (to himself)
that there would be trouble in any case, for he had hit upon the
central idea for the most colossal 'rag' that, in his opinion, ever
was. After morning school he gathered the form around him, and
disclosed his idea. The floor of the form-room, he pointed out, was
some dozen inches below the level of the door. Would it not be a
pleasant and profitable notion, he asked, to flood the floor with water
to the depth of those dozen inches? On the wall outside the form-room
hung a row of buckets, placed there in case of fire, and the lavatory
was not too far off for practical purposes. Mr Smith had bidden him