My great desire was to go to Cambridge, which my father had promised I should do if I succeeded in obtaining a scholarship, which would in part defray the cost of my residence there.

On this scholarship, therefore, my heart was bent (as much as a dawdler's heart can be bent on anything) and I made up my mind to secure it.
The three fellows who were also going in for it were all my juniors, and considerably below me in the doctor's class; so I had little anxiety as to the result.
Need I say that this very confidence was fatal to me?
While they were working night and day, early and late, I was amusing myself with boxing- gloves and fishing-rods.

While they, with wet towels round their heads, burnt the midnight oil, I sprawled over a novel in my study.

Of course, now and then I took a turn at my books, and each inspection tended to satisfy me with myself better than ever.

"Those duffers will never be able to get up all that Greek in the time," I said to myself, "and not one of them knows an atom of mechanics." Well, the time drew near.