Still he clung to the little thistledown of hope that he should have plenty of time to cram it before the form were called up. But another temptation waited him. No sooner was he seated than Graham whispered, "Williams, it's your turn to write out the Horace; I did last time, you know." Poor Eric! He was reaping the fruits of his desire to keep up popularity, which had prevented him from expressing a manly disapproval of the general cheating. Everybody seemed to assume now that _he_ at any rate didn't think much of it, and he had never claimed his real right up to that time of asserting his innocence. But this was a step farther than he had ever gone before. He drew back-- "My _turn_, what do you mean?" "Why, you know as well as I do that we all write it out by turns." "Do you mean to say Owen or Russell ever wrote it out?" "Of course not; you wouldn't expect the saints to be guilty of such a thing, would you?" "I'd rather not, Graham," he said, getting very red. "Well, that _is_ cowardly," answered Graham angrily; "then I suppose I must do it myself." "Here, I'll do it," said Eric suddenly; "shy us the paper." His conscience smote him bitterly. In his silly dread of giving offence, he was doing what he heartily despised, and he felt most uncomfortable. "There," he said, pushing the paper from him in a pet; "I've written it, and I'll have nothing more to do with it." Just as he finished, they were called up, and Barker, taking the paper, succeeded in pinning it as usual on the front of the desk. Eric had never seen it done so carelessly and clumsily before, and firmly believed, what was indeed a fact, that Barker had done it badly on purpose, in the hope that it might be discovered, and so Eric be got once more into a scrape. He was in an agony of apprehension, and when put on, was totally unable to say a word of his Repetition. But far as he had yielded, he would not cheat like the rest; in this respect, at any rate, he would not give up his claim to chivalrous and stainless honour; he kept his eyes resolutely turned away from the guilty paper, and even refused to repeat the words which were prompted in his ear by the boys on each side. Mr Gordon, after waiting a moment, said-- "Why, sir, you know nothing about it; you can't have looked at it. Go to the bottom, and write it out five times." "_Write it out_," thought Eric; "this is retribution, I suppose," and, covered with shame and vexation, he took his place below the malicious Barker at the bottom of the form.