There'll be a return match one day!" It concerned me to hear my old friend talk like this; still more to notice how he began to lose grip in Sharpe's house.

No news flies so fast in a school as that of a responsible head boy being slack or "out of collar." And when once it is known and admitted, it takes a good deal to keep the house from going slack and "out of collar" too.
In our particular department the relaxing of authority was specially apparent.

It destroyed some of the interest in our philosophical extravagances; for the dread of coming across the powers that be lends a certain flavour to the routine of a junior boy.

It also tended to substitute horseplay and rowdyism for mere fun--greatly to the detriment of our self-respect and enjoyment.
On the whole, then, Sharpe's house had a heavier grudge against Mr Jarman than it suspected.
The worst of the whole business was that Tempest himself seemed not to see the effect of his attitude on the house at large.

He did not realise how much the juniors were impressed by what he said and how he looked, or how much his example counted with others of a less imitative turn.