as intractable. That was Simon. It was not in the poet's
nature to agree to cut anybody. When the class dispersed he took it
into his gifted head to march direct to Oliver's study. Oliver was
there, writing a letter.

"Oh, I say, you know," began Simon, nervously, but smiling most affably,
"all the fellows are going to cut you, you know, Greenfield. About that
paper, you know, the time I met you coming out of the Doctor's study.
But _I_ won't cut you, you know. We'll hush it all up, you know,
Greenfield; upon my word we will. But the fellows think--"

"That will do!" said Oliver, angrily.

"Oh, but you know, Greenfield--"

"Look here, if you don't get out of my study," said Oliver, rising to
his feet, "I'll--"

Before he could finish his sentence the poet, who after all was one of
the best-intentioned jackasses in Saint Dominic's, had vanished.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

LOMAN IN LUCK.

While we have been talking of Oliver and Wraysford, and of the manner in
which the results of the Nightingale examination affected them and the
class to which they belonged, the reader will hardly have forgotten that
there was another whose interest in that result was fully as serious and
fully as painful.

Loman had been counting on gaining the scholarship to a dead certainty.
From the moment when it occurred to him he would be able to free himself
of his money difficulties with Cripps by winning it, he had dismissed,
or seemed to dismiss, all further anxiety from his mind. He never
doubted that he in the Sixth could easily beat the two boys in the
Fifth; and though, as we have seen, he now and then felt a sneaking
misgiving on the subject, it never seriously disturbed his confidence.

Now, however, he was utterly floored. He did not need to wait for the
announcement of the results to be certain he had not won, for he had
known his fate the moment his eyes glanced down the questions on the
paper on the morning of examination.

At his last interview with Cripps that memorable Saturday afternoon, he
had promised confidently to call at the Cockchafer next Thursday with
the news of the result, as a further guarantee for the payment of the
thirty pounds, never doubting what that result would be. How was he to
face this interview now?

He could never tell Cripps straight out that he had been beaten in the
examination; that would be the same thing as telling him to go at once
to the Doctor or his father with the docume