orse off now."

"No, I suppose not," says Game, a little doubtfully; "and Bloomfield and
he are such friends. It's just as well to keep in with the captain."

"Not very difficult either," says Ashley.

"He's friendly enough, and doesn't seem to have any grudge. He told me
he hoped I'd be on the monitors' list again next term."

"Ah, I'm having a shot at that too," says Game. "Ah, it is a follow-on,
then. There go our fellows to field again."

Just as the second innings of Templeton is half-over, a melancholy
figure crosses the Big from the school and makes its way to the tent.
It is young Wyndham, whose half-hour's liberty has come round at last,
and who now has come to witness the achievements of that second-eleven
in which, alas! he may not play.

However, he does not waste his time in growling, but cheers vociferously
every piece of good fielding, and his voice becomes an inspiriting
feature of the innings. But you can see, by the way he is constantly
looking at his watch, that his liberty is limited, and that soon, like
Cinderella at midnight, he must vanish once more into obscurity. He
knows to half a second how long it takes him to run from the tent to the
schoolhouse, and at one minute and twelve seconds to six, whatever he is
doing, he will bolt like mad to his quarters.

Before, however, his time is half-over the captain joins him.

"Well, old man," says the latter, "I wish you were playing. It's hard
lines for you."

"Not a bit--(Well thrown up, Gamble!)--not a bit hard lines," says the
boy. "Lucky for me I'm here at all to see the match."

"Well, it'll be all right next term," says the captain. "I say, it
would have done you good to see the cheer your brother got when he
turned up."

"Oh, I heard it," said the boy. "Fairbairn lets me stick in his study--
that window there, that looks right through the gap in the elms, so I
can see most of what's going on--(Now then, sir, pick it up there;
fielded indeed!)"

The match is nearly over, and it looks as if Wyndham will be able to see
the end of it. Nine wickets are down for forty-nine, and five runs must
yet be scored to save Templeton from a single-innings defeat.

The last man begins ominously, for he makes two off his first ball.
Willoughby presses round, breathless, to watch the next. It whizzes
over the wicket, but does no harm. The next ball--one of Forbes's
shooters--strikes on the batsman's pad.

"How's that, umpire?" yells ev