But Steven didn't care. Steven had no respect for this well-entrenched system of segregation. Steven declared that one table was as good as any other. He should be free to eat where he pleased.

Three boys in David's year took it upon themselves to teach Westwynter Minor the error of his ways. They beat him up quite badly, then for good measure hacked off his long, trendy side-lock of hair with a penknife.

Westwynter Major, in turn, felt obliged to demonstrate that if you attacked one brother, you attacked them both.

''Three against one?'' David said as he kicked the living shit out of the bullies behind the cricket pavilion. ''Fucking cowards!''

Afterwards he went to Steven and told him that this was the first and last time he would ever stand up for him like that. Steven had to develop some common sense. You didn't get anywhere by antagonising people.

''So keep my nose clean, huh, Dave?'' Steven sneered through black eye and swollen lip. His head looked lopsided, thanks to the missing side-lock. He had been growing it since the age of ten. ''Be a good little boy? Do as I'm told? And then I'll get to be a prefect, like you next term. And captain of the First Fifteen. And head of the school senet club. And, oh why not, head of the Upper Sixth as well. Everyone's all-round bloody hero.''

''You've got five years to go, and I'm not going to be here to protect you for four of them.''

''I don't need you to protect me.''

''Fine. Then I won't.''

''Fine.''

Steven was a little more careful from then on, however. He flouted the school rules whenever possible and was a regular visitor to the headmaster's study and the regular bearer of the stripes of a good arse-thrashing. But he never again trespassed on the unwritten codes which the pupils themselves lived by. And after David left for university Steven prospered in his own way, setting himself up as a black marketeer and trafficking lucratively in such prohibited items as cigarettes, alcohol, and porn.