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Alex Lazarus, and the missing school bell – by GEORGE BRAINE The year would have been 1964 or 65. At Trinity, the end of each class period was signaled by the ringing sound of a large bell which hung on a low branch of a pine tree above the quadrangle. The bell ringer, I’ll call him Arnolis, was a rotund man who wore an oversized shirt and a sarong worn high above his waist, held up by a thick black belt. At the end of each period, Arnolis would approach, carefully put on filthy ear plugs he kept hidden on a nearby crevice, and beat the bell with a metal rod. The noise rang out throughout the upper school, and the boys would stream out of class rooms. All was well. Then, one morning, the bell was missing. Gone without a clue. Chaos reigned. That was a time when few teachers, let alone students, had wristwatches. Without the ...