"More likely a dog-cart. Anyhow, I dare say he will run us close. But he's such a shifty fellow, there's no knowing whether he will stay out." Just at that moment a terrific row came up from below. "Whatever's up down there?" "Only the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles. By the way," said Wraysford, "they've got a grand `supper,' as they call it, on to-night to celebrate their cricket match. Suppose we go and see the fun?" "All right!" said Oliver. "Who won the match?" "Why, what a question! Do you suppose a match between Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles _ever_ came to an end? They had a free fight at the end of the first innings. The Tadpole umpire gave one of his own men `not out' when he hit his wicket, and they made a personal question of it, and fell out. Your young brother, I hear, greatly distinguished himself in the argument." "Well, it doesn't seem to interfere with their spirits now, to judge of the row they are making. Just listen!" By this time they had reached the door of the Fourth Junior room, whence proceeded a noise such as one often hears in a certain popular department of the Zoological Gardens. Amid the tumult and hubbub the two friends had not much difficulty in slipping in unobserved and seating themselves comfortably in an obscure corner of the festive apartment, behind a pyramid of piled-up chairs and forms. The Junior "cricket feast" was an institution in Saint Dominic's, and was an occasion when any one who had nerves to be excruciated or ear-drums to be broken took care to keep out of the way. In place of the usual desks and forms, a long table ran down the room, round which some fifty or sixty urchins sat, regaling themselves with what was left of a vast spread of plum-cake, buns, and ginger-beer. How these banquets were provided was always a mystery to outsiders. Some said a levy of threepence a head was made; others, that every boy was bound in honour to contribute something eatable to the feast; and others averred that every boy had to bring his own bag and bottle, and no more. Be that as it might, the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles at present assembled looked uncommonly tight about the jackets after it all, and not one had the appearance of actual starvation written on his lineaments. The animal part of the feast, however, was now over, and the intellectual was beginning. The tremendous noise which had brought Oliver and Wraysford on to the scene had indeed been but the applause which followed the chairman's opening song--a musical effort which was imperatively encored by a large and enthusiastic audience.