Mr Sharpe, an amiable bookworm, made periodical mild expostulations, which were always most deferentially received, and most invariably neglected.
If any reader thinks (as we flattered ourselves at the time) that Mr Jarman was the cause of all this state of things, let me tell him he is as stupid as we young fools then were.
It's all very well to stand up for your rights, but the way to do it is not by letting everything go wrong.

If poor old Tempest had taken a bigger view of things, he would have seen that the way to pay Jarman out was by making Sharpe's house the crack house of Low Heath in spite of him.

But how hard it is to see just what the right thing is at the time! So I do not propose to throw stones at anybody, whatever the reader may do.
The Philosophers of course duly entered a record of the transactions just related in their minutes, the reading of which occupied the whole of one of the extraordinary general meetings of their club.
One could never say what line Langrish would take up; and I as president always had my qualms in calling upon him to read the minutes of the previous meeting.
On the present occasion our meeting was held one half-holiday late in the term, in mid-stream, on a barge which, in the course of a "scientific" ramble, we found in a forlorn condition, about a mile above Low Heath.

It was empty, and neither horse nor man nor boy was there to betoken that it had an owner.
Being capacious, though dirty--for it was evidently in the habit of carrying coal--it struck us generally that in the interests of philosophy we should explore it.

The result being satisfactory, it was moved and seconded and carried that the club hereby hold an extraordinary meeting.
Objection was taken to the proximity of our meeting-place to the bank--"in case some of the day louts should be fooling about," as Warminster explained.