In any case, in every such academy, there is always one student who plays the game just the right way, who is made head of house (yes, they had houses back then. Thank God they disbanded them a couple decades back), gets grades that are good enough to keep him out of the bottom set but not so good as to mark him as a swot, and sucks up to the headmaster so hard that he leaves the man a desiccated husk. Such a youth was Goblet.
