Chapter I: The Jacobean
M ICHAEL found the Lower Third at St. James’ a jolly class. He was so particularly young that he was called ‘Baby,’ but with enough obvious affection to make the dubious nickname a compliment. To be sure, Mr. Braxted would often cackle jokes in a raucous voice about his age, and if Michael made a false quantity he would grumble and say he was paid as a schoolmaster not as a wet-nurse. However, Mr. Braxted was such a dandy and wore such very sharply creased and tight trousers and was so well set up and groomed that the class was proud of his neat appearance, and would inform the Upper Third that Foxy Braxted did, at any rate, look a gentleman, a distinction which the Upper Third could scarcely claim for their own form-master.
Michael liked the greater freedom of a public school. There were no home-books to be signed by governesses: there was no longer any taboo upon the revelation of Christian names. Idiosyncrasies were overlooked in the vaster society of St. James’. The senior boys paid no attention to the juniors, but passed them by scornfully as if they were grubs not worth the trouble of squashing. There was no longer the same zest in the little scandals and petty spitefulness of a private school. There was much greater freedom in the choice of one’s friends, and Michael no longer felt bound to restrict his intimacy to the twin Macalisters and Norton. Sometimes in the ‘quarter’ (as the break was now called) Michael would stand on the top of the steps that led down from the great red building into the school-ground. From this point he would survey the huge green field with its archipelago of countless boys. He would think how few of their names he knew and from what distances many of them travelled each morning to school. He could wander among them by himself and not one would turn a curious head. He was at liberty even to stare at a few great ones whom athletic prowess had endowed already with legendary divinity, so that among small boys tales were told of their daring and their immortality gradually woven into the folk-lore of St. James’. Sometimes a member of the first fifteen would speak to Michael on a matter of athletic business.
“What’s your name?”
“Fane,” Michael would answer, hoping the while that his contemporaries might be passing and see this colloquy between a man and a god.
“Oh, yes,” the hero would carelessly continue, “I’ve got you down already. Mind you turn up to Little Side at 1.45 sharp.”
Little Side was the football division that included the smallest third of the school. Sometimes the hero would ask another question, as:
“Do you know a kid called Smith P.L.?”
And Michael with happy blushes would be able to point out Smith P.L. to the great figure.