To dwell upon this beautiful evening is to recover a little of its serene exaltation.  I like to recall it as one of those days about which we ask ourselves why we did not value them more when we had them.  I speak of it here, because, in the soothing peace of the Fal that twilight, the AEsthetic seemed to stir in me—­not so as to wake, but so as to wake soon.  I felt some vague premonition of all the love, the sentiment, and the sorrow which would be mine in the manhood that was brightening to a pale, but tinted, dawn.

Part II:  Long, Long Thoughts

CHAPTER VII

CAUGHT ON THE BEATEN TRACK

Sec.1

I am sixteen now, and the marks on the dormitory wall show me that I am many inches nearer the height of my ambition, which is the height of Radley.  Second in importance, Kensingtowe has a new headmaster, an extraordinary phenomenon in the scholastic heavens, a long man of callow years and restless activity, with a stoop and a pointing forefinger.  He has a quaint habit, when addressing a bewildered pupil, of prefacing his remarks, be they gracious or damnatory, with the formula:  “Ee, bless me, my man.” (Nowadays none of us speaks to a schoolfellow without beginning:  “Ee, bless me, my man.”) “Salome” we call the entertaining creature.  This nickname adhered like a barnacle to him, immediately after he had employed, in his exegesis of the Greek narrative of Herodias’ daughter, the expression:  “Now, if I had been Salome—­”

Ill fares it with a youth, if he has his hands in his pockets and is seen by Salome.  Before he is aware of the great presence, that stoop overhangs him, that forefinger points to the tip of his nose, and a drawling voice says with rhythmic emphasis:  “Ee, bless me, my man, you’ve got—­your hands—­in your pockets.  Take off your spectacles, sir.  I’m going—­to smack—­your face.”

And he can put his foot down, too.  The Bramhallites recently organised a very successful punitive raid on the local errand boys, who were getting too uppish, and now he has stopped all “exeats” for the members of Bramhall House.  The town is out of bounds.

Third in importance is my quarrel with Edgar Doe.  It began, I think, with his jealousy of me as Radley’s new favourite.  Then he has apparently thrown over all desire for glory in the cricket world and decided that, for an elect mind such as his, a reputation for intellectual brilliance is the only seemly fame.  He delights to shock us by boldly saying that he would rather win the Horace Prize than his First Eleven Colours; and is actually at work, I believe, on a translation of the Odes into English verse.  At any rate, he is two forms ahead of Penny and me, and has joined the Intellectuals.  He has views on the Pre-Raphaelites, Romanticism, and the Housing Question.