With so little support from the Common Room, I finally asked Harry’s advice. My trust in my own instincts was rather less secure in those days, and Harry, four years my senior, was one of the best form masters I’d known. As Harrington, Nutter, and Spikely seemed to spend so much of their time with him, I hoped he might give me some idea of how to address my problem.

I found him, as always, in his room, listening to music. He took off the record as I came in and listened attentively to my tale.

“Johnny Harrington,” he said. “Decent kid, if a little quiet. I think he’s finding it hard to adjust.”

“Hard to adjust? It seems to me he’s finding it all too easy. Coasting his way through his lessons, complaining about all and sundry—”

Harry said: “I heard about that. But Harrington’s parents are great friends with Mr. Speight and the Chaplain. All of them go to the same Church. Of course they discuss St. Oswald’s. And Harrington’s parents go through his things. They probably found his Latin notes.”

“You think the boy didn’t report me?”

Harry shrugged. “I don’t know. But in your place, I’d give him the benefit of the doubt. I know he’s not one of your Brodie Boys—”

“My what?”

“Roy, don’t deny it,” he said. “Each of us has his favorites. You have a soft spot for rebels and clowns. You like to encourage subversion. The Chaplain favors the sporting ones. Eric, the polite, respectful ones.” He saw my expression and smiled. “It’s okay. You can’t like all the boys equally. But what we can always do is make sure that we’re not being unfair.”

For a while I said nothing. Harry had a point, of course: but it rather disturbed me to think that my feelings were so easy to read.

“What would you do?” I said at last.

“In your place? I’d have a word with him.”

• • •

I thought about what Harry had said. Nowadays I am aware of my tendency to favor some boys above others. More often than not, I try to compensate for my partiality. Of course I was much younger then, less inclined to scrutinize my motives. All I knew was that I’d disliked Johnny Harrington from the start. Was Harry right? I asked myself. Had I allowed my prejudice to interfere with my judgment?

It was two weeks before the half-term break. Progress tests had just finished—soon to be followed by School exams—and as I’d expected, young Harrington had scored highly in most subjects, coming joint first in Latin and taking sixth place in the form overall—an excellent start for a New Boy, though I’d seen his face as I read out the results, and I knew he’d hoped for better still.