He found the work very easy, as he had been well grounded, and knew his grammar by heart; and, as he had no intimate companions to make him idle (East and his other School-house friends being in the lower fourth, the form above him), soon gained golden opinions from his master, who said he was placed too low, and should be put out at the end of the half-year.

So all went well with him in School, and he wrote the most flourishing letters home to his mother, full of his own success and the unspeakable delights of a public school.
In the house, too, all went well.

The end of the half-year was drawing near, which kept everybody in a good humour, and the house was ruled well and strongly by Warner and Brooke.

True, the general system was rough and hard, and there was bullying in nooks and corners--bad signs for the future; but it never got farther, or dared show itself openly, stalking about the passages and hall and bedrooms, and making the life of the small boys a continual fear.
Tom, as a new boy, was of right excused fagging for the first month, but in his enthusiasm for his new life this privilege hardly pleased him; and East and others of his young friends, discovering this, kindly allowed him to indulge his fancy, and take their turns at night fagging and cleaning studies.

These were the principal duties of the fags in the house.