"I _must_ tell you the rest, Greenfield, please. You're the only fellow I can tell it to. Somehow I think if I'd had a friend like you all the last year I shouldn't have gone wrong as I have. How I used to envy you and Wraysford, always together, and telling one another your troubles! Well, of course, after the Nightingale exam, things were worse than ever. I'd given Cripps a bill, you know, a promise to pay in September. I don't know anything about bills, but he made me sign it. Of course I couldn't pay when it came due, and had to make all sorts of excuses and tell all sorts of lies to get him to give me more time; as if I was more likely to pay later on than then! But, somehow, if I could only get the thing off my mind for the present, I felt that was all I cared about. He gave in at last, and I was able to pay it off bit by bit. But I was in constant terror all that term of his coming up to Saint Dominic's. You know he did come once, at the football match against Landfield, and I thought I was done for." Here Loman paused a moment, and Oliver, seeing that he was determined to tell his story to the end, waited patiently till he continued. "Then there was that Waterston exam. I fancied I might get that if I worked. Ass that I was to think, after all my wasted time and sin, I had any chance against you or Wraysford! I tried to work, but soon gave it up, and went on going down to the Cockchafer instead, to keep Cripps in good humour, till I was quite a regular there. You know what a fearful hash I made of the exam. I could answer nothing. That very day Cripps had sent up to threaten to tell the Doctor everything unless I paid what I still owed. I had paid off all the bill but eight pounds. I had got some of it from home, and some of it by gambling; I'd paid off all but eight pounds. You know, Greenfield, who lent me that." "I'm thankful we were able to do it," said Oliver.