He rose, always in spite of himself, into the Doctor's form, and for
the last two years or so of his time was among the praepostors, though
he never rose into the upper half of them. He did little, and I
think the Doctor rather gave him up as a boy whom he had better
leave to himself, for he rarely made him construe, and he used to send
in his exercises or not, pretty much as he liked. His tacit,
unconscious obstinacy had in time effected more even than a few bold
sallies in the first instance would have done. To the end of his
career his position inter pares was what it had been at the beginning,
namely, among the upper part of the less reputable class- whether of
seniors or juniors-rather than among the lower part of the more
respectable.
Only once in the whole course of his school life did he get praise
from Dr. Skinner for any exercise, and this he has treasured as the
best example of guarded approval which he has ever seen. He had had to
write a copy of Alcaics on "The dogs of the monks of St. Bernard," and
when the exercise was returned to him he found the Doctor had
written on it: "In this copy of Alcaics- which is still excessively
bad- I fancy that I can discern some faint symptoms of improvement.
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