"Oh, do!" said Loman. "I'm certain to be able to pay then. I forgot all about the Nightingale." "The Nightingale? It must be an uncommon spicy bird to fetch in thirty pound!" "It's not a bird," said Loman, laughing; "it's a scholarship." "A what?" "A scholarship. I'm in for an exam, you know, and whoever's first gets fifty-pounds a year for three years." "But suppose you ain't first? what then?" "Oh, but I'm _sure_ to be. I've only got Fifth Form fellows against me, and I'm certain to beat them!" "Well," said Mr Cripps, "I don't so much care about your nightingales and cock-sparrows and scholarships, and all them traps, but I'd like to oblige you." "Oh, thank you!" cried Loman, delighted, and feeling already as if the debt was paid. "And you'll get your friend to wait too, won't you?" "Can't do that. I shall have to square up with him and look to you for the lot, and most likely drop into the workhouse for my pains." "Oh, no. You can be quite certain of getting the money." "Well, blessed if I ain't a easy-going cove," said Mr Cripps, with a grin. "It ain't every one as 'ud wait three months on your poll-parrot scholarships, or whatever you call 'em. Come, business is business. Give us your promise on a piece of paper--if you must impose upon me." Loman, only too delighted, wrote at Mr Cripps's dictation a promise to pay the thirty pounds, together with five pounds interest, in September, and quitted the Cockchafer with as light a heart as if he had actually paid off every penny of the debt. "Of course I'm safe to get it! Why ever didn't I think of that before? Won't I just work the rest of the term! Nothing like having an object when you're grinding." With this philosophical reflection he re-entered Saint Dominic's, and unobserved rejoined the spectators in the cricket-field, just in time to witness a very exciting finish to a fiercely contested encounter. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. SIXTH VERSUS SCHOOL. Never had a Sixth versus School Match been looked forward to with more excitement at Saint Dominic's than the present one. Party feeling had been running high all the term, intensified on the one hand by the unpopularity of some of the monitors, and on the other by the defiant attitude of the Fifth and the tone of their organ, the _Dominican_. The lower school naturally looked on with interest at this rivalry between the two head forms, the result of which, as might have been expected, was the reverse of beneficial for the discipline of the school generally. If the big boys set a bad example and disregard rules, what can one expect of the little ones?