all, nor in
spite of all his efforts could he ever throw a ball or a stone. It soon
became plain, therefore, to everyone that Pontifex was a young muff, a
mollycoddle, not to be tortured, but still not to be rated highly. He
was not however, actively unpopular, for it was seen that he was quite
square _inter pares_, not at all vindictive, easily pleased, perfectly
free with whatever little money he had, no greater lover of his school
work than of the games, and generally more inclinable to moderate vice
than to immoderate virtue.

These qualities will prevent any boy from sinking very low in the opinion
of his schoolfellows; but Ernest thought he had fallen lower than he
probably had, and hated and despised himself for what he, as much as
anyone else, believed to be his cowardice. He did not like the boys whom
he thought like himself. His heroes were strong and vigorous, and the
less they inclined towards him the more he worshipped them. All this
made him very unhappy, for it never occurred to him that the instinct
which made him keep out of games for which he was ill adapted, was more
reasonable than the reason which would have driven him into them.
Nevertheless he followed his instinct for the most part, rather than his
reason. _Sapiens suam si sapientiam norit_.

CHAPTER XXXI

With the masters Ernest was ere long in absolute disgrace. He had more
liberty now than he had known heretofore. The heavy hand and watchful
eye of Theobald were no longer about his path and about his bed and
spying out all his ways; and punishment by way of copying out lines of
Virgil was a very different thing from the savage beatings of his father.
The copying out in fact was often less trouble than the lesson. Latin
and Greek had nothing in them which commended them to his instinct as
likely to bring him peace even at the last; still less did they hold out
any hope of doing so within some more reasonable time. The deadness
inherent in these defunct languages themselves had never been
artificially counteracted by a system of _bona fide_ rewards for
application. There had been any amount of punishments for want of
application, but no good comfortable bribes had baited the hook which was
to allure him to his good.

Indeed, the more pleasant side of learning to do this or that had always
been treated as something with which Ernest had no concern. We had no
business with pleasant things at all, at any rate very little bus