'Now look here, you fellows,' he says, 'you know I've told you that I won't have you running down that steep path to the football field. You are bound to fall down; you must walk. I've told you that a hundred times. Now the matron tells me that she saw one of you running down there this morning. I want to know that boy's name.'
What is Jones mi. to do? He has run down that path so often. Whether or not he did so that morning he cannot remember. He has had so much to think about since then. Yet, suppose he did run down the hill, and suppose that some one saw him. If he does not own up, he will be called a coward all over the school. Far better 'own up,' and receive some small punishment. Indeed, it may be said that the Jones mi.'s of the world form a rule for themselves, that they own up to every offence of which they are not dead certain that they are innocent. Head masters, like batsmen, have to have the benefit of the doubt.
It is equally difficult to acknowledge innocence in the midst of crime. At my old school there was an excellent rule that for half an hour after lunch we should sit in our class-rooms and read quietly. One afternoon this peaceful siesta was disturbed by a loud and fierce and general discussion of the superiority of Yorkshire cricket over that of Lancashire. The particular class-room unfortunately happened to be situated beneath the nursery of the head master's children, and the angry voices of the disputants roused from her slumbers a recent addition to the family. The complaints of a very indignant nurse forced a very busy master to disturb the repose of that restful half-hour after lunch. On this occasion the usual formula was reversed. He did not ask the names of the boys who had been talking, he asked for the names of the boys who had not been talking. Now, as it happened, I had taken no part in the argument. I am a Middlesex supporter, I had just received as a birthday present a bound volume of _Chums_, I was also, at the time, in popular disfavour. So I had seated myself in a far corner of the room and read steadily, with my fingers pressed into my ears. But I did not dare to say so. I should never have been forgiven. It would have been the action of a conscientious objector. No one would have believed me. I realised how hopelessly out of things I should feel while the rest of the school were receiving their punishment. Suppose a half-holiday was stopped--what on earth should I do with a half-holiday all to myself? I should be much happier working out theorems in a class-room. And it was also possible that I might have said something that some one had overheard--at any rate, I was not going to risk it. I sat silent at my desk and accepted meekly the common lot.