thought of Cripps, his other creditor, flashed suddenly
through his mind at that moment, so, closing his hand over the money, he
turned moodily and left the room.

At any rate, he would get clear of Cripps now he had the chance.

As soon as ever morning school was over he took his hat and traversed
once more the familiar road between Saint Dominic's and the Cockchafer.
"Is Cripps at home?" he inquired of the potboy.

"Yas," said the boy. "Who wants him?"

"I do, you young blockhead!"

"You do? Oh, all right! I'll tell him, mister. Don't you collar no
mugs while I'm gone, mind!"

The very potboys despised and ridiculed him!

Loman waited patiently for a quarter of an hour, when the boy returned.

"Oh!" said he, "the governor can't see you, he says. He's a-smoking his
pipe, he says, and he ain't a-goin' to put himself about, he says, for
the likes of you. That's what he says! Ti ridde tol rol ro!" and here
the youth indulged in a spitefully cheerful carol as he resumed the
polishing of the mugs.

"Look here!" said Loman, miserable and half frightened, "tell him I
_must_ see him; I've got some money for him, tell him."

"No! have you?" said the boy. "Well, wait till I've done this here
job--I'm dead on this here job, I am! You can keep, you can."

This was too much even for the dispirited and cowed Loman. He caught
the impudent boy a box on the ear, which resounded all over the
Cockchafer, and sent him howling and yelling to his master.

Cripps appeared at last in a fury. What, he demanded, with half a dozen
oaths, did Loman mean by coming there and assaulting him and his
assistants? "What do you mean, you thieving jackanapes, you! Get out
of my shop, do you hear? or I'll get some one in who will help you out!
_I'll_ teach you to come here and make yourself at home, you lying--"

"Now, Cripps," began Loman.

"Hold your noise! do you hear?" said Cripps, savagely.

"I'm very sorry, Cripps," said the wretched boy; "I didn't mean to hurt
him, but he--"

"Oh! you won't go, won't you? Very good! we'll see if we can make you;"
and Cripps departed from the bar, leaving his young "patron" in anything
but a comfortable frame of mind.

For once in a way, however, Loman was roused, and would not go. The
boy--miserable specimen as he was--had some courage in him, and when
once goaded up to the proper pitch it came out. If he went, he argued
to himself, Cripps would certainly come up to Saint Dominic'