be thinking of leaving a place which one has lived in and loved for eight years; and if one can say a word for the good of the old house at such a time, why, it should be said, whether bitter or sweet.  If I hadn’t been proud of the house and you—­ay, no one knows how proud—­I shouldn’t be blowing you up.  And now let’s get to singing.  But before I sit down I must give you a toast to be drunk with three-times-three and all the honours.  It’s a toast which I hope every one of us, wherever he may go hereafter, will never fail to drink when he thinks of the brave, bright days of his boyhood.  It’s a toast which should bind us all together, and to those who’ve gone before and who’ll come after us here.  It is the dear old School-house—­the best house of the best school in England!”

My dear boys, old and young, you who have belonged, or do belong, to other schools and other houses, don’t begin throwing my poor little book about the room, and abusing me and it, and vowing you’ll read no more when you get to this point.  I allow you’ve provocation for it.  But come now—­would you, any of you, give a fig for a fellow who didn’t believe in and stand up for his own house and his own school?  You know you wouldn’t.  Then don’t object to me cracking up the old School house, Rugby.  Haven’t I a right to do it, when I’m taking all the trouble of writing this true history for all of your benefits?  If you ain’t satisfied, go and write the history of your own houses in your own times, and say all you know for your own schools and houses, provided it’s true, and I’ll read it without abusing you.

The last few words hit the audience in their weakest place.  They had been not altogether enthusiastic at several parts of old Brooke’s speech; but “the best house of the best school in England” was too much for them all, and carried even the sporting and drinking interests off their legs into rapturous applause, and (it is to be hoped) resolutions to lead a new life and remember old Brooke’s words—­which, however, they didn’t altogether do, as will appear hereafter.

But it required all old Brooke’s popularity to carry down parts of his speech—­especially that relating to the Doctor.  For there are no such bigoted holders by established forms and customs, be they never so foolish or meaningless, as English school-boys—­at least, as the school-boys of our generation.  We magnified into heroes every boy who had left, and looked upon him with awe and reverence when he revisited the place a year or so afterwards, on his way to or from Oxford or Cambridge; and happy was the boy who remembered him, and sure of an audience as he expounded what he used to do and say, though it were sad enough stuff to make angels, not to say head-masters, weep.