It was even past a joke.

Bloomfield seriously offered to resign all pretensions to authority and let things take their course.
"It makes me seem," he said, "as if I wanted to stick myself up.

If he's so sure of keeping order by himself, I don't see what use it is my pretending to do it too." "It would serve him right if you did so," said Game.

"But it would be so awfully like giving in now, after you have once begun." This view of the matter decided the question.

But Bloomfield all the same was considerably impressed by what had happened.
He knew in his heart that his only title to the position he assumed was the whim of his schoolfellows.