I should not have minded that, for I recognised that he was a better player than I, but I fancied that he had not done it fairly, for many fellows whom I regarded as certain to support me turned round at the last moment.
"We were in the same form at school.

He had been always near the bottom; I stood fairly up in it, and was generally second or third.
He took to reading, and in six weeks after the fight won his way to the top of the class and remained there; and not only so, but he soon showed himself so far superior to the rest of us that he got his remove to the form above.
"Then there was a competition in Latin verses open to both forms.
Latin verse was the one thing in which I was strong.

There is a sort of knack, you know, in stringing them together.

A fellow may be a duffer generally and yet turn out Latin verse better than fellows who are vastly superior to him on other points.

It was regarded as certain that I should gain that.