Welch was a Guinea-pig who had just made a particularly good shot at the
speaker's nose with a piece of plum-cake. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, I
shall not detain you with a speech (loud cheers from all, and `Jolly
good job!' from Bramble). I shall go on speaking just as long as I
choose, Bramble, so now! (Cheers.) I've as much right to speak as you
have. (Applause.) You're only a stuck-up duffer. (Terrific cheers,
and a fight down at the end of the table.) I beg to drink the health of
the Guinea-pigs. (Loud Guinea-pig cheers.) We licked the old Tadpoles
in the match. (`No you didn't!' `That's a cram!' and groans from the
Tadpoles.) I say we did! Your umpire was a cheat--they always are! We
beat you hollow, didn't we, Stee Greenfield?"

"Yes, rather!" shouted Stephen, snatching a piece of cake away from a
Tadpole and shying it to a Guinea-pig.

"That's eight matches we've won," proceeded Paul; "and--all right,
Spicer! I saw you do it this time! See if I don't pay you for it!"
whereat the speaker hurriedly quitted his seat and, amid howls and
yells, proceeded to "pay out" Spicer.

Meanwhile Stephen heard his name suddenly called upon for a song, an
invitation he promptly obeyed. But as the clamour was at the time
deafening, and the attention of the audience was wholly monopolised by
the commercial transactions taking place between Paul and Spicer, the
effect of the performance was somewhat lost. Oliver certainly did see
his young brother mount up on the table, turn very red in the face, open
his mouth and shut it, smile in one part, look sorrowful in another, and
wave his hand above his head in another. But that was the only
intimation he had of a musical performance proceeding. Words and tune
were utterly inaudible by any one except the singer himself--even if
_he_ heard them.

This was getting monotonous, and the two visitors were thinking of
withdrawing, when the door suddenly opened, and a dead silence
prevailed. The new-comer was the dirtiest and most ferocious-looking of
all the boys in the lower school, who rushed into the room breathless,
and in what would have been a white heat had his face been clean enough
to show it. "What do you think?" he gasped, catching hold of the back
of a chair for support; "Tony Pembury's kept me all this while brushing
his clothes! I told him it was cricket feast, but he didn't care! What
do you think of that? Of course, you've finished all the grub; I kn