ore at the prospect of the
bat.

"If it's awfully dear," he said, at parting, with a sort of sigh, "I
couldn't afford it. My pocket-money's nearly all gone."

He did not say how.

"Oh, never mind, not if you don't pay at all," replied the genial
Cripps. "You'll be having more tin soon, I bet."

"Not till June," said Stephen.

"Well, leave it till June--no matter. But you may as well have the use
of the bat now. Good-day, Master Green--"

"Greenfield, Stephen Greenfield," said Stephen.

"Good-day, and give my respects to Mr Loman, and I hope I shall see you
both again."

Stephen hoped so too, and went off, highly elated, with Loman's rod
under his arm.

Loman pulled rather a long face at hearing the price, and pulled a still
longer face when Stephen told him about the bat. He read his fag a long
lecture about getting into debt and pledging his pocket-money in
advance.

That evening Stephen was solemnly tossed up for by the Guinea-pigs and
Tadpoles. "Heads, Guinea-pigs; tails, Tadpoles." It turned up heads,
and from that time forward Greenfield junior was a Guinea-pig.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE "DOMINICAN," NUMBER ONE.

The eventful day had come at last. Anthony and his confederates had
worked hard, evening after evening, in the secrecy of their studies, and
the first number of the _Dominican_ was ready for publication. The big
frame had been smuggled in, and the big sheet was now safely lodged
behind the glass, with its eight broad columns of clearly-written
manuscript all ready to astonish Saint Dominic's. Two nails had
surreptitiously been driven into the wall outside the Fifth Form room,
on which the precious document was to be suspended, and Tony only waited
for "lights out" to creep down and, with the aid of Ricketts and
Bullinger, fix it in position. Everything succeeded well. The secret
had been kept most carefully, and when, next morning, Saint Dominic's
woke up and swarmed down the passage past the Fifth Form class-room, the
sight of a huge frame, with the words _The Dominican_ staring out from
it, and several yards of writing underneath, fairly startled them.
Master Paul, the fag who had been deputed to the no easy task of
preserving the structure from injury, had a hard time of it, there was
such a hustling and crowding in front of it whenever classes were not
going on. The little boys squeezed in front; the bigger boys read over
their heads; the Sixth examined it from the back of