“Gentlemen of the School-house!  I am very proud of the way in which you have received my name, and I wish I could say all I should like in return.  But I know I shan’t.  However, I’ll do the best I can to say what seems to me ought to be said by a fellow who’s just going to leave, and who has spent a good slice of his life here.  Eight years it is, and eight such years as I can never hope to have again.  So now I hope you’ll all listen to me” (loud cheers of “That we will"), “for I’m going to talk seriously.  You’re bound to listen to me for what’s the use of calling me ‘pater,’ and all that, if you don’t mind what I say?  And I’m going to talk seriously, because I feel so.  It’s a jolly time, too, getting to the end of the half, and a goal kicked by us first day” (tremendous applause), “after one of the hardest and fiercest day’s play I can remember in eight years.” (Frantic shoutings.) “The School played splendidly, too, I will say, and kept it up to the last.  That last charge of theirs would have carried away a house.  I never thought to see anything again of old Crab there, except little pieces, when I saw him tumbled over by it.” (Laughter and shouting, and great slapping on the back of Jones by the boys nearest him.) “Well, but we beat ’em.”  (Cheers.) “Ay, but why did we beat ’em?  Answer me that.” (Shouts of “Your play.”) “Nonsense!  ’Twasn’t the wind and kick-off either—­that wouldn’t do it.  ’Twasn’t because we’ve half a dozen of the best players in the school, as we have.  I wouldn’t change Warner, and Hedge, and Crab, and the young un, for any six on their side.” (Violent cheers.) “But half a dozen fellows can’t keep it up for two hours against two hundred.  Why is it, then?  I’ll tell you what I think.  It’s because we’ve more reliance on one another, more of a house feeling, more fellowship than the School can have.  Each of us knows and can depend on his next-hand man better.  That’s why we beat ’em to-day.  We’ve union, they’ve division—­there’s the secret.” (Cheers.) “But how’s this to be kept up?  How’s it to be improved?  That’s the question.  For I take it we’re all in earnest about beating the School, whatever else we care about.  I know I’d sooner win two School-house matches running than get the Balliol scholarship any day.” (Frantic cheers.)

“Now, I’m as proud of the house as any one.  I believe it’s the best house in the school, out and out.” (Cheers.) “But it’s a long way from what I want to see it.  First, there’s a deal of bullying going on.  I know it well.  I don’t pry about and interfere; that only makes it more underhand, and encourages the small boys to come to us with their fingers in their eyes telling tales, and so we should be worse off than ever.  It’s very little kindness for the sixth to meddle generally—­you youngsters mind that.  You’ll be all the better football players for learning to stand it, and to take your own parts, and fight it through.  But depend on it, there’s nothing breaks up a house like bullying.