ace in our school sports, I let
the time go without training, and so was beaten easily by fellows whom I
had always thought my inferiors. The books I read for my amusement out
of school hours were all abandoned after a chapter or two; my very
letters home became irregular and stupid, and often were altogether
shelved.

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 Frid