Generalisations are always apt to be misleading, but there was surely no truer one ever spoken than the old proverb: "When one is in Rome, one does as Rome does!" Parsons and godmothers will, of course, protest that, if you found yourselves among a crowd of robbers and drunkards, you would not copy them! And yet it is precisely what the average individual would do. When a boy leaves his preparatory school he has a conscience; he would not tell lies; he would be scrupulously honest in form; he would not borrow things he never meant to return; he would say nothing he would be ashamed of his mother or sister overhearing.
But before this same innocent has been at school two terms he has learnt that everything except money is public property. The name in a book or on a hockey stick means nothing. Someone once said to Collins:
"I say, I want to write here, are those your books?"
"No, they are the books I use," was the laconic answer.
The code of a Public School boy's honour is very elastic. Masters are regarded as common enemies; and it is never necessary to tell them the truth. Expediency is the golden rule in all relations with the common room. And after a very few weeks even Congreve would have had to own that the timid new boy could spin quite as broad a yarn as he. The parents do not realise this. It is just as well. It is a stage in the development of youth. Everyone must pass through it. Yet sometimes it leads to quite a lot of misunderstanding.
There were one or two incidents during this summer term that stood out very clearly in Gordon's memory as proofs of the way masters may fail to realise the boy's point of view.
One morning just after breakfast Gordon discovered that he had done the wrong maths for Jenks. He rushed in search of Fletcher.
"I say, Archie, look here, be a sport. I have done the wrong stuff for that ass Jenks. Let's have a look at yours."
In ten minutes four tremendous howlers in as many sums had been reproduced on Gordon's paper. The work was collected that morning, and nothing more was heard of it till the next day. Gordon thought himself quite safe and had ceased to take any interest in the matter. The form was working out some riders more or less quietly. Suddenly Jenks's tired voice murmured:
"Caruthers, did you copy your algebra off Fletcher?"