I could not help wondering if it was a Geneva or an English watch, and whether it had belonged to his father before him, as mine had.

Ah! my father, my poor father and mother! "Cease work, please, and hand in your papers." I declined Wilton's invitation to come and see his moth, and slunk to my room miserable and disgusted.
Even now I do not like to recall the interval which elapsed between the examination and the declaration of the result.

To Johnson, Wilton and Walker it was an interval of feverish suspense; to me it was one of stolid despair.

I was ashamed to show my face among my schoolfellows; ashamed to write home; ashamed to look at a book.

The nearer the day came the more wretched I grew; I positively became ill with misery, and begged to be allowed to go home without waiting for the result.
I had a long interview with the doctor before I quitted Welford; but no good advice of his, no exhortations, could alter my despair.
"My boyhood has been a failure," I said to him, "and I know my manhood will be one too." He only looked very sorrowful, and wrung my hand.
The meeting with my parents was worst of all; but over that I draw a veil.
For months nothing could rouse me from my unhappiness, and in indulging it I dawdled more than ever.