I have never kept a diary, and I have found it, in consequence,somewhat difficult, in telling this narrative, to arrange theminor incidents of my story in their proper sequence. I am writingby the light of an imperfect memory; and the work is complicatedby the fact that the early days of my sojourn at Sanstead Houseare a blur, a confused welter like a Futurist picture, from whichemerge haphazard the figures of boys--boys working, boys eating,boys playing football, boys whispering, shouting, askingquestions, banging doors, jumping on beds, and clattering upstairsand along passages, the whole picture faintly scented with acomposite aroma consisting of roast beef, ink, chalk, and thatcurious classroom smell which is like nothing else on earth.

　　I cannot arrange the incidents. I can see Mr Abney, furrowed as tothe brow and drooping at the jaw, trying to separate Ogden Fordfrom a half-smoked cigar-stump. I can hear Glossop, feverishlyangry, bellowing at an amused class. A dozen other pictures comeback to me, but I cannot place them in their order; and perhaps,after all, their sequence is unimportant. This story deals withaffairs which were outside the ordinary school life.

　　With the war between the Little Nugget and Authority, forinstance, the narrative has little to do. It is a subject for anepic, but it lies apart from the main channel of the story, andmust be avoided. To tell of his gradual taming, of the chaos hisadvent caused until we became able to cope with him, would be toturn this story into a treatise on education. It is enough to saythat the process of moulding his character and exorcising thedevil which seemed to possess him was slow.

　　It was Ogden who introduced tobacco-chewing into the school, withfearful effects one Saturday night on the aristocratic interiorsof Lords Gartridge and Windhall and Honourables Edwin Bellamy andHildebrand Kyne. It was the ingenious gambling-game imported byOgden which was rapidly undermining the moral sense of twenty-fourinnocent English boys when it was pounced upon by Glossop. It wasOgden who, on the one occasion when Mr Abney reluctantly resortedto the cane, and administered four mild taps with it, relieved hisfeelings by going upstairs and breaking all the windows in all thebedrooms.

　　We had some difficult young charges at Sanstead House. Abney'spolicy of benevolent toleration ensured that. But Ogden Ford stoodalone.

　　* * * * *I have said that it is difficult for me to place the lesser eventsof my narrative in their proper order. I except three, howeverwhich I will call the Affair of the Strange American, the Adventureof the Sprinting Butler, and the Episode of the Genial Visitor.

　　I will describe them singly, as they happened.

　　It was the custom at Sanstead House for each of the assistantmasters to take half of one day in every week as a holiday. Theallowance was not liberal, and in most schools, I believe, it isincreased; but Mr Abney was a man with peculiar views on otherpeople's holidays, and Glossop and I were accordingly restricted.