There was no mistaking the doctor's meaning this time. Sharpe's had had a long rope, but had come to the end of it at last. I would not for the world have confessed it at the time, but I was half glad a crisis had come. My conscience had smitten me more than once about my work. I had fooled away the good chance with which I had entered Low Heath. Fellows far below me in scholarship had got ahead of me by force of steady plodding, while I was wasting my time. The good resolutions which I had brought up with me had one by one fallen overboard, and I had been content enough to take my place among the rowdies without an effort. I had counted all through on Tempest's backing up. If he had been keen on the credit of the house, I felt I could have been so too. If he had been down on me for my neglect of work, I felt I should have stuck to it. As it was, slackness reigned supreme. Tempest was slack because he was out of humour. Pridgin was slack because he was lazy. Wales was slack because he wanted to be in the fashion. And all of us were slack because our betters set us the example. It needs no little courage for a single boy to attempt to stem the drift of slackness in a school house. A dull, dogged boy like Dicky Brown might have done it; but I could not afford to be peculiar, and therefore succumbed, against my judgment, to the prevalent dry rot. Now that a crisis had come I hoped Tempest might, if not for his own sake, for ours, pull up, and take his house in hand, as he well could do if he chose. A short conversation I overheard as I was fagging in his study that morning, however, was not encouraging. "What's it to be," said Wales, "a lecture or a row?" "A row, I hope," said Tempest wearily. "What's wrong, old chap?" asked Pridgin. "Nothing. Out of curl, that's all," said Tempest, trying to assume a laugh. "You're not going to cave in to Jarman at this time of day," said Wales, "are you?" "Do you think it likely?" said Tempest. "I tell you what I don't like," said Pridgin presently; "that's the way Crofter's lately taken to do the virtuous." "That's not the worst of him," said Wales; "but he's been chumming up with Jarman. I've met them twice lately walking together." "I suppose he's got his eye on the headship of the house," said Tempest, "when I get kicked out." "Look here, old chap," responded Pridgin, looking really anxious, "it's not to come to that, surely. It would be intolerable to have him over us. Come what will, you must stick to us." "All very well," said Tempest dismally; "that's England's affair more than mine. If knuckling under to Jarman is a condition, I'm out of it, and Crofter is welcome to it." This was all; and it was bad enough. When the summons to assemble in hall came, I went there in a state of dejection, feeling that the fates were all against me, and that the new leaf I hoped for was several pages further on yet.