John took the First Fourth, and his little boys could always be detected by their neatness and extreme cleanliness.  Neither of these can be called a characteristic of little boys in general, but the little fellows made an effort to overcome their natural tendencies “to please old John.”  When his hereditary enemy triumphed, and his reason left him, hundreds of his old pupils wished to subscribe, and to surround John for the remainder of his life with all the comforts that could be given him in his afflicted condition.  It was very characteristic of John to refuse this offer, and to go of his own accord into a pauper asylum, where he combined the duties of chaplain and butler until his death.  John was buried at Harrow, and by his own wish no bell was tolled, and his coffin was covered with scarlet geraniums, as a sign of rejoicing.  I know how I should describe John, were I preaching a sermon.

Another mildly eccentric Harrow master was the Rev. T. Steele, invariably known as “Tommy.”  His peculiarities were limited to his use of the pronoun “we” instead of “I,” as though he had been a crowned head, and to his habit of perpetually carrying, winter and summer, rain or sunshine, a gigantic bright blue umbrella.  He had these umbrellas specially made for him; they were enormous, the sort of umbrellas Mrs. Gamp must have brought with her when her professional services were requisitioned, and they were of the most blatant blue I have ever beheld.  Old Mr. Steele, with his jovial rubicund face, his flowing white beard, and his bright blue umbrella, was a species of walking tricolour flag.

Schoolboys worship a successful athlete.  There was a very pleasant mathematical master named Tosswill, always known as “Tosher,” who at that time held the record for a broad jump, he having cleared, when jumping for Oxford, twenty-two and a half feet.  That record has long since been beaten.  Should one be walking with another boy when passing “Tosher,” he was almost certain to say, “You know that Tosher holds the record for broad jumps.  Twenty-two and a half feet; he must be an awfully decent chap!” Tosswill had the knack of devising ingenious punishments.  I was “up” to him for mathematics, and, with my hopelessly non-mathematical mind, I must have been a great trial to him.  At that time I was playing the euphonium in the school brass band, an instrument which afforded great joy to its exponents, for in most military marches the solo in the “trio” falls to the euphonium, though I fancy that I evoked the most horrible sounds from my big brass instrument.  To play a brass instrument with any degree of precision, it is first necessary to acquire a “lip”—­that is to say, the centre of the lip covered by the mouthpiece must harden and thicken before “open notes” can be sounded accurately.  To “get a lip” quickly, I always carried my mouthpiece in my pocket, and blew noiselessly into it perpetually, even in school.  Tosher had noticed this.  One day