Ponty had dropped a casual eye on him now and then, so had Mansfield; and neither the captain that was, nor the captain that was to be, liked the look of things.
"He's going the way of all--all the Pledgelings," said Ponty.

"Can't you stop it, Mansfield ?" "If I were captain of Templeton, I'd try, old man," replied the other.
"Really, Mansfield, you frighten me when you look so solemn.

What can I do ?" "Do?
Take him away from where he is, to begin with." "On what grounds?
Pledge hasn't done anything you or I could take hold of.

And if the kid is going to the dogs, we can't connect it with Pledge, any more than we can with Winter himself." And Ponty yawned, and wished Mansfield would not look as if somebody wanted hanging.
"It's curious, at any rate," said Mansfield, "that Pledge's fag should begin to go to the dogs, while his chum, who fags for Cresswell, and is quite as racketty, should keep all right." "Do you call young Richardson all right ?" asked Ponty.

"I should say he and his friend are in the same boat, and he's holding the tiller." Which was pretty 'cute for a lazy one like Ponty.
"Well," said Mansfield, who, with all his earnestness, felt really baffled over the problem, "things mustn't go on as they are, surely." "Certainly not, dear boy, if we can make them better; but I don't see what's to be done.