It may have been observed from some allusions in the preceding chapter that, although still occasionally attendant at a jollification, I had partly shaken off my habits of idleness and set to work, and that this beneficial change was brought about by pressure of an approaching examination. In Cantab phrase I was suffering examination funk. This was my first chance of distinction. True, we had undergone occasional examinations in Euclid and Greek, but these were entirely at the option of our individual College tutors, and without any public result. Knowing but little as yet of the complicated system, I had paid but little attention to its workings in Triposes and University Scholarship examinations, though some knowledge of them was forced upon me by conversations in hall. When the great degree examination for mathematical honors came off in January and a “Small-College” man was Senior Wrangler, the announcement of this unusual occurrence did not particularly interest me; nor, just returned as I was from a winter expedition into Dorsetshire, did I even go to see the ceremony of degree-taking and behold the lion of the day. The Classical Tripos next month I knew and cared something more about, partly because it was a subject that more concerned me, and partly from the very uncommon circumstance of there being no Chancellor's Medals adjudged that year.