It also had changed hands: a wing had been added, and
the double tier of tiny studies made brilliant with electric light.
But the quad and the fives-courts did not look a day older; the ivy
was no thicker round the study windows; and in one boy's castle we
found the traditional print of Charing Cross Bridge which had knocked
about our studies ever since a son of the contractor first sold it
when he left. Nay, more, there was the bald remnant of a stuffed
bird which had been my own daily care when it and I belonged to
Raffles. And when we all. filed in to prayers, through the green
baize door which still separated the master's part of the house from
that of the boys, there was a small boy posted in the passage to
give the sign of silence to the rest assembled in the hall, quite
identically as in the dim old days; the picture was absolutely
unchanged; it was only we who were out of it in body and soul.
On our side of the baize door a fine hospitality and a finer flow
of spirits were the order of the night. There was a sound
representative assortment of quite young Old Boys, to whom ours was
a prehistoric time, and in the trough of their modem chaff and chat
we old stagers might well have been left far astern of the fun.
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