The Age of Chums of Chance

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

Ya Sam wrote:
> Subject: The Age of Chums of Chance
> 
> At the beginning of the novel, I mean. It is agreed upon that they are 
> 'young', Chick Counterfly and Darby Suckling being evidently the youngest 
> ones, i.e. teenagers. But how about St. Cosmo, whom they call 'professor'? 
> He doesn't strike me as particularly boyish. Lindsay also looks more or less 
> grown up. What do you think?
> 

I have a whole scenario which has developed relatively free of any rationale.
Chick and Darby are 12.  St Cosmo is 17 going on 18, and Lindsay may have just turned 16.  
The Chums organization, founded after a vision and speaking tour by some Baden-Powell kind of dude, funded by wealthy American industrialists (like the guy who founded Telluride House) and by people of that class as well as some "noblesse oblige" nobility types in Britain - built on, are drawn from various orphanages and foundling homes: a great opportunity for the lads and a labor force for various important tasks not easily staffed through the usual sources.  

St Cosmo is British, and new to command.  Two or more senior officers who had molded St Cosmo and Lindsay have recently been called to a different posting.  The Chums organization may in fact not be strictly punctilious, indicating either a growth phase or a decline (hard to tell), and what may have been intended as a "pro tem" posting firms into a longer tenure as they forge through different missions (like Lardass Levine's officer justifies Levine's status - "they said put your best guys on this, but I don't have anybody that's much good, so you're up" or words to that effect)