ired all Riddell's authority, in the face of this splendid
achievement, to keep his men from jeopardising their second innings in
the field by yielding prematurely to elation.

"For goodness' sake don't hulloa till you're out of the wood!" he said;
"they may catch up on you yet. Seventy-five isn't such a big score
after all. If you don't look out you'll muddle your chance away, and
then how small you'll look!"

With such advice to hold them in check, they went out as soberly as
before to field, and devoted their whole energies to the task of
disposing of their enemies' wickets for the fewest possible runs.

And they succeeded quite as well as before. Indeed, the second innings
of the Parretts was a feeble imitation of their first melancholy
performance. Parson, King, and Wakefield were the only three who made
any stand, and even they fared worse than before. All the side could
put together was twenty-one runs, and about this, even, they had great
trouble.

When it became known that the Welchers had won the match by an innings
and twenty-nine runs, great was the amazement of all Willoughby, and
greater still was the mortification of the unlucky Parretts. No more
was said about the grand concert in which they intended to celebrate
their triumph. They evidently felt they had not much to be proud of,
and, consequently, avoiding a public entry into their house, they slunk
in quietly, and, shutting out the distant sounds of revelry and
rejoicing in the victorious house, mingled their tears over a
sympathetic pot of tea, to which even Telson was not invited.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

A CLIMAX TO EVERYTHING.

Among the few Willoughbites who took no interest at all in the juniors'
match was Gilks.

It was hardly to be wondered at that he, a schoolhouse boy, should not
concern himself much about a contest between the fags of Welch's and
Parrett's. And yet, if truth were known, it would have been just the
same had the match been the greatest event of the season, for Gilks,
from some cause or other, was in no condition to care about anything.

He wandered about listlessly that afternoon, avoiding the crowded Big,
and bending his steps rather to the unfrequented meadows by the river.
What he was thinking about as he paced along none of the very few boys
who met him that afternoon could guess, but that it was nothing pleasant
was very evident.

At the beginning of this very term Gilks had been one of the noisiest