When any one told him a thing, he usually believed it straight off.

If any one professed to be anything, he usually assumed it was so.

The small knot of boys at Templeton who called themselves religious, who said their prayers steadily, who refused to do what their conscience would not allow, who tried to do good in some way or other to their fellows, these Heathcote had readily believed were Christians, and more than once he had wished he belonged to their set.
But, somehow, Pledge's influence gave him altogether different ideas on these points.

For instance, he would one evening hear a conversation somewhat as follows, between his senior and some friend--generally Wrangham of the Fifth, who usually associated with Pledge: "I hear Holden is not going to try for the Bishop's scholarship, after all," says Wrangham, who, by the way, is aesthetic, and adopts an air of general weariness of the world which hardly becomes a boy of seventeen.
"Did he tell you so himself ?" asked Pledge.
"Yes." "Then, of course, we don't believe it.

He'd like us to think so, I daresay." "He knows what he is about, though.