Loman was a comparatively new boy at Saint Dominic's. He had entered eighteen months ago, in the Fifth Form, having come direct from another school. He was what many persons would call an agreeable boy, although for some reason or other he was never very popular. What that something was, no one could exactly define. He was clever, and good-tempered, and inoffensive. He rarely quarrelled or interfered with any one, and he had been known to do more than one good-natured act. But whether it was that he was conceited, or selfish, or not quite straight, or a little bit of all three, he never made any very great friends at Saint Dominic's, and since he had got into the Sixth and been made a monitor, he had quite lost the favour of his old comrades in the Fifth. As far as Wraysford and Greenfield were concerned, this absence of goodwill had ripened into something like soreness, by the way in which Loman had made use of his own position as a monitor, on a casual reference by Oliver to the probable coming of Stephen to Saint Dominic's, to secure that young gentleman as his fag, although he quite well knew that Wraysford was counting on having him. Though of course the captain's word was final, the two friends felt that they had not been quite fairly dealt with in the matter. They took no trouble to conceal what they thought from Loman himself, who seemed to derive considerable satisfaction from the fact, and to determine to keep his hand on the new boy quite as much for the sake of "scoring off" his rivals as on the fag's own account. Loman, Wraysford, and Greenfield _were_ rivals in more matters than one. They were all three candidates for a place in the school eleven, and all three candidates for the Nightingale Scholarship next autumn; and besides this, they each of them aspired to control the Junior Dominicans; and it was a sore mortification to Loman to find that, though a monitor, his influence among the small fry was by no means as great as that of the two Fifth Form boys, who were notoriously popular, and thought much of by their juniors. For these and other reasons, the relations between the two friends and Loman were at the present time a little "strained." To Stephen, however, Loman was all civility. He helped him in his lessons, and gave him the reversion of his feasts, and exercised his monitorial authority against Master Bramble in a way that quite charmed the new boy, and made him consider himself fortunate to have fallen into the hands of so considerate a lord. When he entered Loman's study after his first morning's work in class, he found that youth in a highly amiable frame of mind, and delighted to see him. "Hullo, Greenfield!" he said; "how are you? and how are you getting on? I hear you are in the Fourth Junior; all among the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles, eh? Which do you belong to?" "I don't know," said Stephen; "they are going to draw lots for me to-morrow."