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It was in doubt whether he could take the School Certificate and go on to the sixth form. O'Hanlon and the science masters wanted him to try, and the rest opposed it. The decision had to be made by the new headmaster, who knew nothing of Alan. Boughey had proved himself a new broom, upsetting sacred traditions of the school. The head of the Classical Sixth was no longer automatically the head of school. The prefects had been alienated when he lectured the whole school on 'dirty talk'. (They felt he was judging Sherborne by Marlborough standards.) The staff were horrified when he issued a fiat, in front of the school, that there would be no memorial to Carey in the chapel. This incident sealed his doom. The official history20 would record that
现在，艾伦能否通过认证考试，并升入六年级，仍是一个疑问。奥汉兰和科学老师希望给他个机会试一试，但其他人都表示反对，而这个决定，将由对艾伦一无所知的新校长来做。鲍尔黑是把新扫帚，他扫去了舍尔伯尼的传统，当级长例行批判脏话时，反而被他搞得很难堪（于是他们觉得，校长是用马尔伯勒的标准管理舍尔伯尼）。当这位新校长在全校宣布，不会在教堂为凯瑞举行悼念仪式时，全校的员工都感到很吃惊，官方的历史如此记载：
A natural shyness could give an impression of self-esteem and indifference to school affairs that had perhaps no great foundation in fact … he had to fight against an ill health that was largely the result of war service and he found it increasingly hard to make the public appearances or even to provide the constant private accessibility which a headmaster's position inevitably demands.
虽然这么说有点没根据，但羞怯确实往往会给人留下自负和冷漠的印象……他参加过战争，因此健康状况不太好，这使他出现在公共场合，甚至是长时间的私人谈话，越来越艰难。但是作为校长，亲合力又是必须的。
Whether as cause or effect, he was 'poisoned', as Brewster would have put it, by alcohol. The school settled down to a power struggle between Ross and Boughey, and it was the fight between old and new that settled Alan's future, for Boughey over-ruled Ross on principle and allowed him to be entered for the School Certificate.
不知这是原因还是结果，鲍尔黑校长「中毒」了，按布鲁斯特的说法，他中了酒精之毒。他和罗斯的权力斗争，在舍尔伯尼上演，而这场新旧之争，在某种程度上奠定了艾伦的未来。因为大体来说，鲍尔黑胜过了罗斯，而且鲍尔黑允许艾伦参加认证考试。
