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And all this time (such is the blindness of some people) I was imagining I had quite retrieved my lost reputation! I shall never forget, however, how at last I discovered that my time at Welford had been wasted, and that, so far from having got the better of my enemy, I had become a more confirmed dawdler than ever.

I had come to my last half-year at school, being now seventeen. My great desire was to go to Cambridge, which my father had promised I should do if I succeeded in obtaining a scholarship, which would in part defray the cost of my residence there. On this scholarship, therefore, my heart was bent (as much as a dawdler’s heart can be bent on anything) and I made up my mind to secure it.

The three fellows who were also going in for it were all my juniors, and considerably below me in the doctor’s class; so I had little anxiety as to the result.

Need I say that this very confidence was fatal to me? While they were working night and day, early and late, I was amusing myself with boxing- gloves and fishing-rods. While they, with wet towels round their heads, burnt the midnight oil, I sprawled over a novel in my study. Of course, now and then I took a turn at my books, and each inspection tended to satisfy me with myself better than ever. “Those duffers will never be able to get up all that Greek in the time,” I said to myself, “and not one of them knows an atom of mechanics.”

Well, the time drew near. My father had written rejoicing to hear of my good prospects, and saying how he and mother were constantly thinking of me in my hard work, and so on.

“Yes,” thought I, “they’ll be pleased, I know.” About a week before the examination I looked at my books rather more frequently, and, now and then (though I would not acknowledge it even to myself), felt my confidence a trifle wavering. There were a few things I had not noticed before, that must be got up with the rest of the subjects, “However, a day’s work will polish them off,” said I; “let’s see, I’ve promised to fish with Wilkins to-morrow–I’ll have a go in at them on Thursday.”

But Thursday found me fishing too, and on Friday there was a cricket- match. However, the examination was not till Tuesday, so there was half a week yet.

Saturday, of course, was a half-holiday, and though I took another look at some of my books, and noted one or two other little things that would have to be got up, I determined that the grand “go in” at, and “polishing off” of, these subjects should take place on Monday.

On Monday accordingly I set to work.

Glancing from my window–as I frequently did while I was at work–whom should I see, with a fly-net over his shoulder, but Wilton, one of the three fellows in against me for the scholarship! And not long after him who should appear arm-in-arm in cricket costume, but Johnson and Walker, the other two!

“Ho! ho!” said I to myself, “nice boys these to be going in for an exam.! How can they expect to do anything if they dawdle away their time in this way! I declare I quite feel as if I were taking an unfair advantage of them to be grinding away up here!”

Had I realised that these three fellows had been working incessantly for the last month, and were now taking a breath of fresh air in anticipation of the ordeal of the following day, I should have been less astonished at what I saw, and more inclined to work, at any rate this day, like mad.

But I allowed my benevolent desire not to take an unfair advantage to prevail, and was soon far up the stream with my fishing-rod.