… his 'crime' was discovered, was summoned to see the headmaster, Sir Arthur fforde. It could potentially have been a flogging offence, but the headmaster, bizarrely, offered him a glass of nonalcoholic sherry. It no doubt helped that fforde, like …

To assent to the words Of medieval law To pay a corporal price To death, by lapidation

[…] every gamester will agree how necessary it is to know exactly the play of another, in order to countermine him.

But once the disorientation had passed, hir forced hirself back to full consciousness--and worked quickly to establish hir position, and Ruskin's.