Daily , as he told me to translate a passage , I stood up in panic and made ridiculous guesses , spellbound into what I knew to be futility .sx And daily my exhibition would be cut short by a contemptuous roar , if not by an infuriated figure charging at me across the room with a gown flourished as in the wind .sx I was berated , and sometimes I was thwacked .sx It made no difference , and after a time he gave it up , contenting himself by making me write out any broken rule twenty times .sx As I broke twenty or so at a lesson , or in a single prose , I was in daily attendance for the full imposition time from four till five in the afternoon .sx Nevertheless , I had an affection for H. G. B. He knew it , and apart from his furies was kind to me .sx When not excited by classic transgressions he administered rebuke with an icy humour .sx Once , just as we had assembled in form from prayers in the hall , he addressed me :sx 'Oh , Drinkwater ?sx ' ( rising ) 'Yes , sir .sx ' 'I ask merely out of curiosity .sx I am interested in other people's religious experiences .sx Don't answer if you would rather not .sx What is your objection to the Lord's Prayer ?sx ' 'What , sir ?sx ' 'The Lord's Prayer .sx What precisely is your objection to it ?sx ' 'I don't think I've got any , sir .sx ' 'Then why don't you say it ?sx ' But out of school we got on well together .sx Then my ignorance no longer exasperated but amused him ; moreover , he knew I liked things that he liked , swimming and mushrooming and bird's-nesting and taking photographs .sx I think he was rather an unhappy man ; disappointed , perhaps , that some temperamental twist had confined his learning to the second mastership of a High School .sx His fancy was taken by a boy who already knew something of the Water Eaton meadows and Bagley Wood .sx Also he liked an enthusiasm for games , which he shared with awkward insufficiency , although it is true that when I got my cricket colours he observed that it merely showed the poor standard of the school .sx He was tall and muscular , with a high bald forehead ; a rock .sx He was able to kick a football only in a straight line with his run , and had to deploy himself in the field in order to get into position for his approach .sx To interfere with the ball while he did this was daring to the point of rashness ; it was risking pursuit and effacement by juggernaut .sx I was active enough sometimes to escape in possession , hearing over my shoulder a thunder of feet and muttered imprecations 'beast' or 'little pig .sx ' But to meet his onset was to ensure disaster ; his path was as that of the tornado ; no one ever better heeded than he the injunction to keep straight on .sx He was probably the worst footballer in the world .sx He had a Canadian canoe , and in this I used to be taken on summer afternoon expeditions .sx I did the paddling , while he lay on his back among cushions , smoking Melachrino cigarettes .sx Tea was taken with .sx us , and I boiled the water and washed the cups and .sx plates afterwards .sx He used to make me swim from the .sx bank to the canoe , increasing the distances until I .sx became a tolerably good performer .sx I don't think we talked about anything in particular , but he was the first person I knew who seemed to find it worth while to drift about the backwaters and look among the reeds for a moorhen's nest or tie up to a willow to watch the haymakers working with their broad wooden rakes .sx Apart from his classics he took not much interest in books , or , if he did , told me nothing of it .sx Shortly before I left school he gave me my choice between a book and a Diamond Jubilee medal ; I took the medal which I still have and he said it was very sensible of me .sx I saw him once again some years after I left .sx I went down to Oxford from Birmingham for my Uncle Charles's funeral .sx I was to spend the evening with Belcher and return by the midnight train .sx I called on him at his Walton Street lodgings at eight o'clock , and had supper .sx At about half-past ten he announced that just now a desirable moth frequented the lamps of Woodstock Road .sx Providing me with an old bicycle he set off on a new free-wheeler at a great pace , like a lancer , with a long cane-shafted butterfly net over his shoulder .sx He bade me follow , which I did laboriously in a black frock-coat and a tweed cap that he lent me in place of my top-hat .sx In any place but Oxford I must have excited curiosity in the police .sx My last recollection of him is a rather fine , aggressive face , turned up to the lamplight , and ungraceful arms jerking the net for its prey .sx He died before he was old .sx The boys of thirty-five years ago come up again like ghosts , mostly little faded ghosts on old photographs .sx Sometimes in Oxford I see a name on a door-plate , and go in to find a lawyer or a wine-merchant , bald perhaps , or grey , out of whose face looks a remote urchin , on another who looks back at him .sx 'Bless me , you haven't changed,' is the formula .sx Curiously , it is true .sx The lines and the deepening contours , the scriptures and the almond-blossom , are strangely transparent disguises of a countenance known in youth .sx And it is the old image , not the new , or rather the young , not the old , that attends these later meetings .sx As we talk , the untried features of twelve define themselves intensely , serenely , behind the mask of forty-seven .sx Strange , too , is the insistency without such renewals .sx Returning lately to the school I looked over an old album of the early 'nineties .sx There I found myself in a little straw hat with a bulging crown , standing at the end of the back row among the members of the Lower Third .sx Ghost by ghost they spoke their names , no one of them hesitating Salter , Hurcomb , Webb , Zacharias , Wintle , Kent , Gardiner , and the rest .sx I had seen but one or two of them since the days when the discoloured silver print was made a chance moment with Salter , who is , I believe , now the League of Nations , and a lunch or two with Hurcomb , who is the Ministry of Transport .sx No ; the recollections had .sx lain those five-and-thirty years in hiding , tacit and unsuspected , to spring up , fresh and supple , at the summons of an old photograph .sx Three times at school I suffered serious indignity .sx Galpin , now City Coroner of Oxford I wonder if he can remember .sx My weekly pocket-money allowance was threepence .sx But the Disciplinarian of Winchester Road made threepence a matter of intricate finance .sx The sum was represented by twelve cardboard discs four for each penny .sx For every misdemeanour , according to its gravity , a fine was fixed ; as , one disc for untidiness , two for being late , three for disobedience .sx In consequence , Saturday morning usually found a debit balance against me ; a penny credit was phenomenal .sx Casual , and undisclosed , profits from cribbage were commonly all that stood between myself and destitution .sx After one prolonged period of economic reverses my fortitude deserted me .sx Galpin and I sat next each other in the Second , and one morning I begged a penny of him .sx He was very displeased , and resisted for a long time , but at length I begged it .sx I spent it on the way home at dinner-time , and then became exceedingly uncomfortable about it .sx In the afternoon I tried to avoid Galpin , which was difficult , sitting next to him .sx In the way of the world I conceived an uneasy dislike towards him for being able to give me a penny .sx The next morning he told me that his father wished to see me , and I was terrified .sx I was sure that somehow I had not begged but stolen the penny .sx I refused to go , but he said I must .sx His father , also , was Coroner ; I had a notion that he was the principal policeman .sx After much persuasion I went , almost sick with fear as I climbed the stairs of his office .sx I was , he understood , a friend of his son .sx I was .sx He liked to see his son's friends .sx 'Yes , sir,' very faintly , with dry lips , hating him for delaying the blow .sx Would I , perhaps , come to tea on Saturday ?sx I would ask if I might .sx Yes , that would be very nice , dismissing me .sx And then , as I went bewildered to the door , 'Oh , by the way , put this in your pocket' a half-crown .sx Not a word of the penny .sx As I walked home I made a revaluation of life .sx I told nobody about it .sx But if ever half a crown bought a man's title to heaven , Mr. Galpin is there .sx My other embarrassments had no such auspicious relief .sx I was supposed to look after my own clothes , which I didn't .sx One wet morning , as I was leaving for school , it was found that my boot-soles needed mending .sx I ought , it seems , to have known this and done something about it .sx I had no others for bad weather , and in spite of all protests Disciplinarian made me go to school in a pair of her own .sx I suppose there was no alternative , but the humiliation was dreadful .sx They were the old high-buttoned kind that women used to wear , with scollop-shaped tops that reached nearly to my knees .sx I slunk along St. Giles's , and waited outside the playground until the bell rang .sx I spent the morning in agonised and futile efforts to hide my legs .sx How I got home I do not know .sx The weather had cleared by dinner-time , and I was allowed to go back humanly shod in the afternoon .sx Though this was a bad business , there was a worse .sx We had no official tuck-shop , but the school patronised the baker of the doughnuts , famous also for fattycakes .sx By the doorway of the shop was a large sack of broken biscuits , sold at a clearance price .sx It was a recognised if furtive practice for boys who had made other purchases to help themselves to a pinch of these scraps on leaving .sx One day , as I did this , the shopman accosted me .sx 'Come here .sx ' I went to the counter .sx 'What have you got in your pocket ?sx ' I produced them :sx 'Biscuits .sx ' `Where did you get them from ?sx ' He had seen me take them , and I knew it , but I lost my head .sx 'From home .sx ' 'Oh , I see .sx You come from Mr. Brown's in Cornmarket , don't you ?sx ' 'Yes .sx ' 'All right .sx ' I heard no more of it , but although I was at the school three years longer , until I was fifteen , I never went into the shop again .sx My refuge , in these and all other anxieties , was my Grandfather .sx I did not tell him actually of particular troubles , but to be with him was soothing .sx Also , he liked doing the things that I liked , and he talked to me about serious matters , sometimes in a way that I did not understand , but always in a way that interested me .sx His household consisted of my Uncle Charles , Disciplinarian , my sister and myself , and the servants .sx My sister soon went to a convent school in Belgium , and afterwards became a nun .sx Between Uncle Charles and myself an entirely undemonstrative friendship grew up , founded largely on a common hostility towards Disciplinarian .sx Once or twice he took me fishing for roach and perch at Thrupp , and one spring night he came up to my bedroom and waked me to show me some thrush's eggs in a box of primroses that he had brought back from the country .sx After a time he found Winchester Road tiresome , and took rooms in a farmhouse out at Cumnor , where he was near to the lady to whom he was engaged .sx I called there once in his absence , with a schoolfellow , announced that I was Mr. Brown's nephew , and suggested that we should be fed .sx The farmer's wife placed a new ham before us , and left me to carve it .sx I have never been able to carve well , and Uncle Charles sent a somewhat heated message to Winchester Road .sx