It seemed a call of duty, and therefore it was a call of honour, which Riddell dare not disobey.

But to leave the schoolhouse just now, when it lay under the reproach caused by the boat-race accident; and worse still, to leave it just when young Wyndham seemed to be drifting from his moorings and yielding with less and less effort to the temptations of bad companions--these were troubles compared with which the perils and difficulties of his new task were but light.
For a long time that night Riddell sat in his study and pondered over the doctor's offer, and looked at it in all its aspects, and counted up all the cost.
Then like a wise man he took counsel of a Friend.

Ah! you say, he talked it over with Fairbairn, or Porter, or the acute Crossfield--or, perhaps, he wrote a letter to old Wyndham?
No, reader, Riddell had a Friend at Willoughby dearer even than old Wyndham, and nearer than Fairbairn, or Porter, or Crossfield, and that night when all the school was asleep, little dreaming what its captain did, he went to that Friend and told Him all his difficulties about Welch's, and his anxieties about young Wyndham, and even his unhappiness about the boat-race; and in doing so found himself wonderfully cheered and ready to face the new duty, and even hopeful of success.
Next morning he went to the doctor and told him he was ready to enter on his new duties.

Dr Patrick was not the man to flatter his head boy or to inspire him with undue hopes; but he was undoubtedly gratified by the decision, and Riddell felt encouraged in the consciousness of his sympathy.
At call-over that evening the Welchers had the pleasure of being informed by the doctor of the new arrangements proposed for their welfare, and, it need hardly be said, were considerably moved thereby.
At first they were disposed to regard the affair as a joke and a capital piece of fun.

But when that evening Riddell put in an appearance at supper, in their house, and when Telson was intercepted bringing over his late master's goods and chattels to the study next but one to that of Silk, they began to take the matter in rather more seriously.
For the first time for a long while Welch's house seemed to be of one mind--a mind made up of equal mixtures of resentment and amazement and amusement.