t of it was, that till the examinations next term
there could be nothing to show for it. For the Sixth did not change
their places every day as the lower forms did. There was no chance of
leaping to the top at a bound by some lucky answer, or even of advancing
a single desk. And therefore, however hard he worked this term, he
would never rise above eighteenth classic in the eyes of the school, and
that was not--well, he would have liked to be a little higher for the
sake of Willoughby!

The outlook was not encouraging. Even Wibberly, the toady, and Silk,
the Welcher, were better men than he was at classics.

Suppose, instead of spending his energy over classics, he were to get up
one or two rousing speeches for the Parliament, which should take the
shine out of every one else and carry the school by storm? It was not a
bad idea. But the chance would not come. No one could get up a fine
speech on such a hackneyed subject as "That Rowing is a finer Sport than
Cricket," or that "The Study of Science in Public Schools should be
Abolished!" And when he did attempt to prepare an oration on the
subject of Compulsory Football, the first friend he showed it to pointed
out so many faults in the composition of the first sentence that
prudence prompted him to put the effusion in the fire.

Meanwhile his friends and admirers kept him busy. Their delight seemed
to be to seize on all the youngsters they could by any pretext lay hands
on and hale them to appear before him. By this means they imagined they
were making his authority known and dealing a serious blow at the less
obtrusive captain in the schoolhouse.

Poor Bloomfield had to administer justice right and left for every
imaginable offence, and was so watched and prompted by officious
admirers that he was constantly losing his head and making himself
ridiculous.

He gave one boy a thrashing for being found with a paper dart in his
hand, because Game had reported him; and to another, who had stolen a
book, he gave only twenty lines, because he was in the second-eleven.
Cusack and Welcher, who was caught climbing the schoolhouse elms one
Monday, he sentenced to an hour's detention; and Pilbury, whom he caught
in the same act on Tuesday, he deprived of play for a week--that is, he
said he was not to leave his house for a week. But Pilbury turned up
the very next day in the "Big," under the very nose of the Parrett
captain, who did not even observe his presence.