At a school, for
instance, where the regulations say that coats only of black or dark
blue are to be worn, a boy who appears one day in even the most
respectable and unostentatious brown finds himself looked on with a
mixture of awe and repulsion, which would be excessive if he had
sandbagged the headmaster. So in the case of shoes. School rules decree
that a boy shall go to his form room in shoes. There is no real reason
why, if the day is fine, he should not wear gym shoes, should he prefer
them. But, if he does, the thing creates a perfect sensation. Boys say,
"Great Scott, what _have_ you got on?" Masters say, "Jones, _what_ are
you wearing on your feet?" In the few minutes which elapse between the
assembling of the form for call-over and the arrival of the form master,
some wag is sure either to stamp on the gym shoes, accompanying the act
with some satirical remark, or else to pull one of them off, and
inaugurate an impromptu game of football with it. There was once a boy
who went to school one morning in elastic-sided boots.
Mike had always been coldly distant in his relations to the rest of his
form, looking on them, with a few exceptions, as worms; and the form,
since his innings against Downing's on the Friday, had regarded Mike
with respect.
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