As long as every spare moment was occupied with his congenial sport, and a place in the second-eleven was a prize within reach, he had neither time nor inclination to fall back on the society of Silk or Gilks, or any of their set.

And as long as the good resolutions continued to fire his breast, he was only too glad to find refuge from temptation in the steady pursuit of so honourable an ambition as cricket.
He was, if truth must be told, more enthusiastic about his cricket than about his studies, and that evening it was a good while before Wyndham could get his mind detached from bats and balls and concentrated on Livy.
Riddell himself, too, found work more than ordinarily difficult that night, but his thoughts were wandering on far less congenial ground than cricket.
Supposing that letter did mean something, how ought he to act?
It was no pleasant responsibility to have thrown on his shoulders the duty of bringing a criminal to justice, and possibly of being the means of his expulsion.

And yet the honour of Willoughby was at stake, and no squeamishness ought to interfere with that.

He wished, true or untrue, that the wretched letter had been left anywhere but in his study.
"I say," said young Wyndham, after about an hour's spell of work, and strangely enough starting the very topic with which Riddell's mind was full--"I say, I think that boat-race business is blowing over, do you know?
You don't hear nearly so much about it now." "The thing is, ought it to blow over ?" said the captain, gravely.
"Why, of course! Besides, after all it may have been an accident.

I broke a bit of cord the other day, and it looked just as if it had been partly cut through.