CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
A DEAD HEAT.
The few weeks during which I had been laid up had witnessed some curious changes in Low Heath--at least, they seemed curious to me, dropping, as I did, suddenly into them.
First of all, we poor "Sharpers" were all burnt out.

The faggery was no more, nor was the hall, or the dormitory.

We were being put up temporarily in a town house just outside the school gates, a good deal to the wrath of some of our number, who felt it was putting them down to the level of the day boys.

However, the sight of the scaffolding round our old quarters, and the cheery clink of the trowel, reminded us that out exile was not for long, and that in a brand-new faggery, on brand- new chairs, and round a brand-new table, we should shortly resume our pleasant discussions on the deepest questions with which the human mind can occupy itself.
Somehow, apart from the fire, things weren't going exactly as I had left them.

Pridgin was reported to be working hard--a most alarming symptom.
It was commonly surmised that he could not stand playing second or third fiddle to Crofter; and as Tempest was apparently content to be second, Pridgin had come to the painful conclusion that the only comfortable place for him in Sharpe's was Number One.