I was admitting that, now that this little phrase had popped
up through some trap-door of my mind, my conscience, long dormant on
the cheating theme, would have to be talked round again. And, as
something like suspense set in, I was anxious to join issue at once.

I left Penny abruptly and retired to a window (as you will have
observed it was my fashion to do), where I leant upon the sill and
prepared to argue out the problem.

Our co-operative effort to avoid preparing our lesson, was it wrong?
Yes. In spite of the old sophistry I knew it to be so. But what
attitude should one adopt? To refuse publicly to have any part in
the system would seem like mock-heroics. The only course open was to
learn the work and earn the marks. Inevitably I had arrived at the
conclusion which I dreaded. To learn the work seemed a task
surprisingly difficult and menacing after half-a-term's freedom. I
hugged that freedom. I wished my calm acquiescence in the system had
not been ruffled.

To learn the work--it was a little thing surely: to learn it unseen
and alone, while other boys went free of the labour, and gave
themselves the marks, notwithstanding. But no, I could no more
persuade myself that it was a little thing than I could believe that
any other course was the right one. I felt it was big--too big for
_me_.

Then the old thought, probably not an hour younger than sin itself,
was quick to take advantage of my indecision: I would go on as I was
a little while longer--till the end of the term--and then begin with
a clean sheet. There was much to be said in favour of this: for see,
if I were to do the thing thoroughly this term, I ought to forgo all
the marks that I had already come by dishonestly. To do that was
impossible. The confession involved would court expulsion.
Expulsion! As the word occurred to me, I realised the enormity of my
offence. How could I go on with that which, if detected, would mean
expulsion? To answer this question I went the whole dreary round of
reasoning once more and arrived at the conviction that the straight
action was incumbent upon me; which conviction I hastened to explain
away with the same dull casuistry. Sick and weary, I left the
window-sill and ceased to think any more. My conscience had given
battle to evil and neither lost nor won. Indecisive as the issue
was, I knew in my heart of hearts that it partook of the nature of a
defeat.

Later on, I wrote to my mother quite an effective analys