Clive followed Sturton and a few of the others out of the dormitory, slippers on his feet and a towel about his waist.
"Swim, eh?" asked Sturton, giving him an encouraging nod.
"Rather!"
"You're the sort of chap we want then. Hullo! Masters still fugging. None of those old games, Masters," sang out Sturton, whose manner of addressing the one in question showed that he meant to be head of his dormitory whatever happened. "Here, out you come! Fugging may be allowed at home, but at Ranleigh, never!"
The unfortunate individual who lay next to Clive, and who had declared his intention of sparing a bare ten minutes on this, the first morning, for the purpose of ablution and dressing, was dragged out of bed without ceremony.
"Hop into your shoes and no skulking," said Sturton, standing over him. "I've had enough of your slackness, Masters. Every chap over twelve in this dormitory goes down for a dip every morning. The kids can, too, if they like. Same with those in Four South. I tell you One and Four are going to come out cock dormitory in footer this term if I can manage it."
Grumbling was of no use. Indeed, Masters showed no great inclination that way. Clive found him, after a while, when they had become more intimate, a merry, contented fellow, but dreadfully lazy.
"A regular slacker," Sturton declared on more than one occasion. "There's a cart-load of sisters at his home, and they molly-coddle the fellow. If he imagines an ache or a pain, even in his toe, he lies abed in the morning and is fed by one of the many sisters. But there's no bringing chaps up here on the spoon. No hand-rearing at Ranleigh if I know it. When a chap's ill, he can go to the sick-room. That's right enough. Or to the 'sanny' if he's really bad. Otherwise he's got to be fit—fit as a fiddle, Darrell."
Sturton was nothing if not open and straight-forward. Clive found in him something strangely akin to Harvey, the idol of the lower school, the man admired and envied by all the seniors. For Sturton was fresh and breezy in his ways. He addressed the juniors, not as if they were so many nuisances, or as individuals vastly beneath his notice—a manner much resorted to by Rawlings and the fat-faced Trendall—but as equals, cheerily; but always in a way that showed that he expected instant obedience.
His motto was perfection. He set an example of the strenuous life, and allowed no shirking where games were concerned. Nor was he backward where work came into account. His figure, dressed in an overcoat over his pyjamas, often with a towel about his curly head, was familiar to all in the dormitory who happened to open their sleepy eyes in the early morning. For Sturton was "swatting." He had some examination in view, and since the rules of Ranleigh forbade the burning of the candle at both ends, and indeed compelled the shutting down of all lights by ten o'clock at night, Sturton perforce had to burn the candle at one end only, and that the daylight one. Five o'clock found him poring over his books at the dormitory table.