ting myself right with the
fellows if I won; but I'm half afraid I won't win, and then their
highnesses will be doubly sure of my villainy!"

"I know you will win," said Wraysford.

"If I do I shall feel an awful blackguard, for you would have been
certain of it."

"I'm not so very sure. However, I think I could have beaten Loman."

"He seemed out of it, quite. Do you know I think that fellow is going
to the dogs altogether?"

"Pity," said Wraysford, "if he is, but it does look like it."

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

LOMAN IN LUCK AGAIN.

It certainly did look as if Loman was going to the dogs. And any one
able to see and know all that was going on in his mind would have found
out that he was a good deal nearer "the dogs" even than he seemed.

On the evening after the examination he received a note from Cripps--
brought up in a most barefaced way by one of the potboys at the
Cockchafer--requesting the pleasure of Mr Loman's company at that
pleasant spot _immediately_, to talk over business!

"Why didn't he send it by post?" demanded Loman, angrily, of the
disreputable messenger. "Don't you know if you were seen up here
there'd be a row?"

"Dunno so much about that, but the governor, he says he's dead on the
job this time, he says, and if you don't show up sharp with the stumpy,
he says he'll give you a call himself and wake you up, he says--"

"Tell him I'll come, and go off quick," said Loman, hurriedly.

"Beg pardon, mister," said the potboy, with a leer, and touching his
cap, "anything allowed for this here little job--carrying up the
letter?"

"I'll allow you a kick if you don't go!" exclaimed the wretched Loman,
furiously.

"Oh, very good," said the boy, making a long nose. "Wait till the
governor walks up. We'll see who'll kick then!"

And so saying the amiable and respectable youth departed.

"Hullo!" said Wren, coming up just at this moment, "who's your friend,
Loman? He looks a nice sort of boy!"

Wren was now captain and head monitor at Saint Dominic's--far too blunt
and honest ever to be an object of anything but dislike and uneasiness
to Loman. Now the uneasiness was the more prominent of the two. Loman
replied, confused and reddening, "Oh, that boy? Why--oh, he's a
shop-boy from the town, come up about an order--you know--for a
hat-box."

"I don't know. Do you mean Morris's boy?"

"Ye--yes. A new boy of Morris's."

"Well, whoever he is, he's a precious cheeky specimen. W