No, bother it; if he was going to "back up" Stratton, the other fellows would have to back up too.
His one grief was that the stock of impositions stored up by the industry of the two new boys would not be likely to be wanted now, which would be wicked waste.

D'Arcy had already occasionally drawn on them, and one day nearly spoiled the whole arrangement by taking up to Mr Wakefield fifty lines of Virgil precisely five minutes after they had been awarded.

Fortunately, however, his hands were exceedingly grimy at the time, so that Mr Wakefield sent him back for ablutions before he would communicate with him.

And in the interval he fortunately discovered his error, and instead of taking up the imposition with his clean hands, he delighted the master with a knotty inquiry as to one of the active tenses of the Latin verb "To be." However, there was no saying when the imposition?
might not come in useful, and meanwhile Ashby and Fisher minor were taken off the job and ordered to sit up hard with their work for Stratton.
"You know," said Wally, propounding his scheme of moral reform in a little preliminary speech, "you kids are not sent up here to waste your time.

No more's D'Arcy." "How do you know what I was sent up here for ?" said D'Arcy.