These examinations and certificates and so on —what did they matter? And all this efficiency and up-to-dateness —what did THAT matter, either? Ralston was trying to run Brookfield like a factory—a factory for turning out a snob culture based on money and machines. The old gentlemanly traditions of family and broad acres were changing, as doubtless they were bound to; but instead of widening them to form a genuine inclusive democracy of duke and dustman, Ralston was narrowing them upon the single issue of a fat banking account. There never had been so many rich men’s sons at Brookfield. The Speech Day Garden Party was like Ascot. Ralston met these wealthy fellows in London clubs and persuaded them that Brookfield was THE coming school, and, since they couldn’t buy their way into Eton or Harrow, they greedily swallowed the bait. Awful fellows, some of them—though others were decent enough. Financiers, company promoters, pill manufacturers. One of them gave his son five pounds a week pocket money. Vulgar… ostentatious… all the hectic rotten-ripeness of the age… And once Chips had got into trouble because of some joke he had made about the name and ancestry of a boy named Isaacstein. The boy wrote home about it, and Isaacstein p�re sent an angry letter to Ralston. Touchy, no sense of humor, no sense of proportion—that was the matter with them, these new fellows… No sense of proportion. And it was a sense of proportion, above all things, that Brookfield ought to teach —not so much Latin or Greek or Chemistry or Mechanics. And you couldn’t expect to test that sense of proportion by setting papers and granting certificates…

All this flashed through his mind in an instant of protest and indignation, but he did not say a word of it. He merely gathered his tattered gown together and with an “umph—umph” walked a few paces away. He had had enough of the argument. At the door he turned and said: “I don’t— umph—intend to resign—and you can—umph—do what you like about it!”

Looking back upon that scene in the calm perspective of a quarter of a century, Chips could find it in his heart to feel a little sorry for Ralston. Particularly when, as it happened, Ralston had been in such complete ignorance of the forces he was dealing with. So, for that matter, had Chips himself. Neither had correctly estimated the toughness of Brookfield tradition, and its readiness to defend itself and its defenders. For it had so chanced that a small boy, waiting to see Ralston that morning, had been listening outside the door during the whole of the interview; he had been thrilled by it, naturally, and had told his friends. Some of these, in a surprisingly short time, had told their parents; so that very soon it was common knowledge that Ralston had insulted Chips and had demanded his resignation. The amazing result was a spontaneous outburst of sympathy and partisanship such as Chips, in his wildest dreams, had never envisaged. He found, rather to his astonishment, that Ralston was thoroughly unpopular; he was feared and respected, but not liked; and in this issue of Chips the dislike rose to a point where it conquered fear and demolished even respect. There was talk of having some kind of public riot in the School if Ralston succeeded in banishing Chips. The masters, many of them young men who agreed that Chips was hopelessly old-fashioned, rallied round him nevertheless because they hated Ralston’s slave driving and saw in the old veteran a likely champion. And one day the Chairman of the Governors, Sir John Rivers, visited Brookfield, ignored Ralston, and went direct to Chips. “A fine fellow, Rivers,” Chips would say, telling the story to Mrs. Wickett for the dozenth time. “Not—umph—a very brilliant boy in class. I remember he could never—umph—master his verbs. And now —umph—I see in the papers—they’ve made him— umph—a baronet. It just shows you—umph—it just shows you.”

Sir John had said, on that morning in 1908, taking Chips by the arm as they walked round the deserted cricket pitches: “Chips, old boy, I hear you’ve been having the deuce of a row with Ralston. Sorry to hear about it, for your sake—but I want you to know that the Governors are with you to a man.