But woe betide them if they ever tried it! The only extravagance he had ever been known to commit was some months ago, when he bought a book of trout-flies, which rumour said must have cost him as much as an ordinary Classic's pocket-money for a whole term.
To an impressionable youth like Fisher minor it was only natural that Rollitt should be an object of awe.

For a day or two after his arrival, when the stories he had heard were fresh in his memory, the junior was wont to change his walk to a tip-toe as he passed the queer boy's door.
If ever he met him face to face, he started and quaked like one who has encountered a ghost or a burglar.

After a week this excess of deference toned down.

Finding that Rollitt neither hurt nor heeded him, he abandoned his fears, and, instead of running away, stood and stared at his man, as if by keeping his eye hard on him he could discover his mystery.
It was two or three days after Elections that Fisher minor, having discovered by the absence of everybody from their ordinary haunts that it was a half-holiday, took it into his head to explore a little way down the Shargle Valley.

He believed the other fellows had gone up; and he thought it a little unfriendly that they should have left him in the lurch.
He was not particularly fond of woods, unless there were nuts in them; or of rivers, unless there were stones on the banks to shy in.