But though I loved Rugby and was happy there, I can’t say I was a success.  I made few friends, who have since, with one exception, drifted out of my life.  I was too timid to enjoy Rugger.  I never achieved distinction at cricket.  I got into the sixth my last term, but hadn’t the force of character to enjoy the prefectural powers which that fact conferred upon me.  The fact is that I left when I was 16, and it is between 16 and 18 that the full enjoyment of school life comes and boys reap the harvest they have sown.  Had I stayed another year I should have belonged to the leading generation, strengthened my friendships and developed what was latent in my character.  As it was, I left at an unfortunate age.  I was pushed into the sixth a year before my contemporaries.  My friendships were only half formed, and I had only just begun to feel strength of body and mind developing in me.

As a junior I was too conscientious, and not light-hearted enough.  I hardly had any adventures at Rugby, because I had an incurable instinct for keeping rules.  I worked hard at mathematics and French, and my report generally read, “Good ability.  Might exert himself more.”  At classics and chemistry I did as little work as possible, and any report generally read, “Hard-working but not bright.”

On the whole I think I was pretty happy at Rugby; but I never look back to my school days as the happiest part of my life.  I have had many happier times since.  But still, my house was a good one.  Jacky, the housemaster, was wonderfully kind and wise.  He hardly ever interfered with the affairs of the house, but left it all—­in appearance—­to the “Sixths.”  Actually, nothing escaped him.  The tone of the house was on the whole extraordinarily clean and wholesome, and the fellows who had dirty minds were a small minority, and easily avoided.  At all events, very little of that sort of thing reached me.

At sixteen and a half I went to the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, commonly known as “the Shop.”  There I spent the two most miserable years of my life, and made the second of my great friendships.  In these days the Shop was still a pretty rough place, and at the moment it was unusually full.  I think there were over 300 fellows there altogether, and there were about 70 in my term.  My first experience was unfortunate.  I was interviewing the Adjutant, a keen sportsman and a bit of a tartar.  He eyed me unfavourably, asked what games I could play, and when I replied that I had no great proficiency in any he commented, “Humph, a good-for-nothing!” and dismissed me.

I am by nature slow, stolid and clumsy.  I was bad at being “smart”; I was slow and clumsy at drill; map making and geometrical drawing were physical impossibilities to me; I was incredibly slow and stupid at machinery, mechanism and electricity.  The only subject which interested me was military history.  In my first term I dropped from about forty-fourth to about seventieth in my class, and I kept near the bottom until my fourth term, when I failed in my electricity exam., and had to stay one term more.  In the same term I received a prize for the best essay on the lessons of the South African War.