“Now I just vow to goodness, as I’ll do all I can to get these cloisters took from you boys,” shrieked old Ketch, clasping his hands together. “There’s insults as flesh and blood can’t stand; and, as sure as I’m living, I’ll pay you out for it.” He turned tail and hobbled off, as he spoke, and the boys raised “three groans for Jack Ketch,” and then rushed away by the other entrance to their own dinners. The fact was, the porter had brought ill will upon himself, through his cross-grained temper. He had no right whatever to interfere between the boys and the cloisters; it was not his place to do so. The king’s scholars knew this; and, being spirited king’s scholars, as they were, would not stand it. “Tom,” said Arthur Channing, “don’t say anything at home about the organ. Wait and see if I get it, first. Charley did not hear; he was ordered off with the juniors.” CHAPTER VIII. -- THE ASSISTANT-ORGANIST. Things often seem to go by the rule of contrary. Arthur returned to the office at two o’clock, brimful of the favour he was going to solicit of Mr. Galloway; but he encountered present disappointment. For the first time for many weeks, Mr. Galloway did not make his appearance in the office at all; he was out the whole of the afternoon. Roland Yorke, to whom Arthur confided the plan, ridiculed it. “Catch me taking such a task upon myself! If I could play the organ like a Mendelssohn, and send the folks into ecstasies, I’d never saddle myself with the worry of doing it morning and afternoon. You’ll soon be sick of the bargain, Channing.” “I should never be sick of it, if I did it for nothing: I am too fond of music for that. And it will be a very easy way of earning money.” “Not so easy as making your mother stump up,” was the reply. And if your refinement turns from the expression, my good reader, I am sorry you should have to read it; but it is what Mr. Roland Yorke _said_. “I had a regular scene with Lady Augusta this morning. It’s the most unreasonable thing in the world, you know, Channing, for her to think I can live without money, and so I told her--said I must and would have it, in fact.” “Did you get it?” “Of course I did. I wanted to pay Simms, and one or two more trifles that were pressing; I was not going to have the fellow here after me again. I wish such a thing as money had never been invented!” “You may as well wish we could live without eating.” “So I do, sometimes--when I go home, expecting a good dinner, and there’s only some horrid cold stuff upon the table. There never was a worse housekeeper than Lady Augusta. It’s my belief, our servants must live like fighting cocks; for I am sure the bills are heavy enough, and _we_ don’t get the benefit of them.” “What made you so late this afternoon?” asked Arthur.