Loman

“ Loman was deputed to wait upon the Fifth with the demand of the monitors, and lost no time in carrying out this welcome task. Class was just over, and the Fifth were just about to clear out of their room when Loman entered. It was not often that a Sixth Form fellow penetrated into their camp, and had they not guessed his mission they might have resented the intrusion.
“Oh, you fellows,” began Loman, feeling not quite so confident now as he had felt five minutes ago, “we can’t have that thing of yours hanging out in the passage like that. It makes a crowd—too much row. Whose is it?” ”

“ To Stephen, however, Loman was all civility. He helped him in his lessons, and gave him the reversion of his feasts, and exercised his monitorial authority against Master Bramble in a way that quite charmed the new boy, and made him consider himself fortunate to have fallen into the hands of so considerate a lord.
When he entered Loman’s study after his first morning’s work in class, he found that youth in a highly amiable frame of mind, and delighted to see him.
“Hullo, Greenfield!” he said; “how are you? and how are you getting on? I hear you are in the Fourth Junior ”

“ On the contrary, he suddenly felt himself growing to such a pitch of misery and low spirits as even in the worst of his troubles he had never experienced. He repented bitterly of ever bringing himself to come and ask such a favour of his worst enemy, and, stranger than all, he felt his dislike for Greenfield increased rather than swept away by this abrupt, startling piece of generosity. Strange the whims that seize us! Loman would almost have been happier in his old suspense about Cripps than to feel he owed such a debt to such a creditor. ”

“ I don’t often go. Ask Loman if I do. He’s always there, and could easily tell if I went. Do I go often, Loman? Besides, I’ve given it up now!”
“Quick work,” observed Wren, drily, “if you were down there this morning.”
“Well,” said Simon, shifting his ground slightly, “I didn’t think there could be any harm, as Loman goes. He’s a monitor. And then I don’t owe Cripps money, do I, Loman? Or play cards and bet, like you, do I? Oh, look here, Wren, do let us off this time. Don’t report me, there’s a good fellow. I promise I won’t do it again! Oh, I say, Loman, beg us off. ”

“ Callonby, of course, did good work, but Loman, the half-back, was woefully unsteady.
“What a jackass I was to put the fellow there!” said Stansfield to himself.
And yet Loman, as a rule, was a good player, with plenty of dash and not a little courage. It was odd that to-day he should be showing such specially bad form.
There goes the ball again, clean over the forwards’ heads, straight for him! He is going to catch it and run! No; he is not! He is going to take a flying kick! No, he is not; he is going to make his mark! No, he is not; he is going to dribble it through! ”

“ Why wasn’t he playing in the match? Why did the fellows, as they came near him, look straight in front of them, or go round to avoid him? Why did the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles strut about and crack their vulgar jokes right under his very nose, as if he was nobody? Alas, Loman! something’s been wrong with you for the last year or thereabouts; and if we don’t all know the cause, we can see the effect. For it is a fact, you are nobody in the eyes of Saint Dominic’s at the present time. ”

“ Loman, who had already been made dreadfully uncomfortable by Simon’s poem, made no secret of his rage over this number of the Dominican. He was one of those vain fellows who cannot see a jest where it is levelled at themselves. The rest of the Sixth had the sense, whatever they felt, to laugh at Anthony’s hard hits. But not so Loman; he lost his temper completely. He ordered the Dominican to be taken down; he threatened to report the whole Fifth to the Doctor. ”

“ Loman was a comparatively new boy at Saint Dominic’s. He had entered eighteen months ago, in the Fifth Form, having come direct from another school. He was what many persons would call an agreeable boy, although for some reason or other he was never very popular. What that something was, no one could exactly define. He was clever, and good-tempered, and inoffensive. He rarely quarrelled or interfered with any one, and he had been known to do more than one good-natured act. ”

“ But tell them or not tell them, the fellows knew already. It had oozed out very soon that a fight was coming off, and instantly the whole school was in excitement. For however little some of them cared about the personal quarrel between Oliver and Loman, a fight between Fifth and Sixth was too great an event to be passed by unheeded.
The Fifth were delighted. They knew their man could beat Loman any day of the week, and however much they had once doubted his courage, now it was known he was the challenger every misgiving on that score was done away with. ”

“ Cripps the younger, putting aside for a season the anxieties and responsibilities of his “public” duties in Maltby, usually devoted to the pursuit of the “gentle craft,” at his worthy father’s cottage by Gusset Weir. Loman, who was aware of this circumstance, and on whose spirit that restless top joint had continued to prey ever since the evening of the misadventure a week ago, determined to avail himself of the opportunity of returning the unlucky fishing-rod into the hands from which he had received it. ”

“ Loman was one of them. He was evidently in difficulties, and the Fifth Form fellows, who looked round occasionally from their English Literature papers, were elated to see their own men writing steadily and hard, while the Sixth man looked all aground. ”

“ Loman said. "But he could always return by recording, couldn't he? Before that, it was all arranged—with many who sympathized with the human cause. The mind probe showed that my expressed views were truthful. Interworld Security could use someone who was clever, unknown, and supremely active. Umhm-m—maybe I'm even harder than they hoped! Yes, I'm still an android, Les, because I have to be strong for battle. I hardly care who learns of it now, because the fight is sure to come. But I'll be a man again, when and if I can. And, like a man, I love my son. ”

“ He could never tell Cripps straight out that he had been beaten in the examination; that would be the same thing as telling him to go at once to the Doctor or his father with the document which the boy had signed, and expose the whole affair. And it would be no use making a poor mouth to the landlord of the Cockchafer and begging to be forgiven the debt; Loman knew enough by this time to feel convinced of the folly of that. What was to be done?
“I shall have to humbug the fellow some way,” said Loman to himself, as he sat in his study the afternoon after the announcement of the result. ”

“ He reached the lungs, and a great burst of air flung him forth into the oxygen helmet again.
Loman's form still twitched on the floor. One enemy was erased from the immediate future at least. Loman—or the pseudo Ronald Payten—had been removed as an active force of history, but the fury he had helped stir up was by now self-sustaining. Ed gave him a brief, almost rancorless thought. A woman had lost her husband in the Moonblast. And he was her memory re-created. She had had reason to hate science. ”

“ We should imagine from these verses that Mr Wren must be well acquainted with Robbin. Take one more, Master Loman’s ‘A Funny Story.’ We are sorry to find Master Loman tells stories. Boys shouldn’t tell stories; it’s not right. But Master Loman unfortunately does tell stories, and this is one. He calls it ‘A Funny Story.’ That is a story to begin with, for it is not funny. We don’t know what Master Loman thinks funny; perhaps he calls being run out at cricket funny, or hitting another boy in the mouth when he’s looking another way. ”

“ Look here, young gentleman, I must have 10 pounds down, if I’m to wait.”
“Ten pounds! I haven’t as much in the world!” exclaimed Loman. “I can give you five pounds, though,” he added. “I’ve just got a note from home to-day.”
“Five’s no use,” said Cripps, contemptuously, “wouldn’t pay not the interest. You’ll have to make it a tenner, young gentleman.”
“Don’t say that, Cripps, I’d gladly do it if I could; I’d pay you every farthing, and so I will if you only wait.”
“That’s just the way with you young swells. You get your own ways, and leave other people to get theirs best way they can. ”

“ Come and kick my legs, young ’un; there’s no one near but Loamy, and he can’t hurt.”
“Look here, you lame little wretch!” exclaimed Loman, in a passion; “if I have any more of your impudence I’ll box your ears!”
“I thought your wrist was sprained?” artlessly observed Pembury. “Here, young Paul, let’s get behind you, there’s a good fellow, I am in such a funk!”
Whether Loman would have carried out his threat or not is doubtful, but at that moment a terrific shout greeted another hit by Oliver—the best he had made during the match—for which he ran four. One to tie, two to win! will they do it? ”

“ Thus they saw Carter Loman's caravan start back toward Port Karnak, with its booty of all that Mitchell Prell had made here: the fruit of a man's mind. But to Loman it was also the worst of the world's inventions. Loman was an android and also, obviously, a central figure, a personage of some importance, or he would not have been sent on this mission. But his mind remained that of a bigot.
Just then Ed Dukas found a savage pleasure in shaking one of the smallest fists ever to exist at the three retreating tractor vehicles. "Loman, Granger and the rest of you," he said, "there'll come a time. ”

“ I say, how jolly low you came out!”
“Look here! you’d better hold your row!” said Loman, surlily, “unless you want a hiding.”
“Oh; it’s not that, you know. What I meant was about Greenfield senior. Isn’t that a go?”
“What about him? Why can’t you talk like an ordinary person, and not like a howling jackass?”
“Why, you know,” said Simon, off whom all such pretty side compliments as these were wont to roll like water off a duck’s back—“why, you know, about that paper?”
“What paper?” said Loman, impatiently. “The one that was stolen out of the Doctor’s study, you know. Isn’t that a go? ”

“ I always like to oblige where I can; besides, you would do as much for me, I’ll wager. Well, good-day, Mr. — what’s your name?”
“Loman—at Saint Dominic’s. You’ll send me a line, then, about the price?”
“Yes, sir. Good-day, sir.”
But Mr. Cripps had forgotten to send the line, and to-day, when Loman, according to arrangement, came up to the lock-keeper’s to receive the rod, the keeper of the Cockchafer was most profuse in his apologies. He was most sorry, but his friend had been ill and not able to attend to business. ”

“ When, in his desperation, the boy naturally turned to the very being he had all along most carefully kept ignorant of his proceedings, it was time for Cripps to pull up.
He stopped Loman as he was going away, with a laugh, as he said, in his old tones, “Steady there, young gentleman, what a hurry you are in! A man can’t have a little bit of fun, just to see how you like it, but there you go, and give it all up, and go and get yourself into a regular perspiration! ”

“ While we have been talking to Oliver and Wraysford, and of the manner in which the results of the Nightingale examination affected them and the class to which they belonged, the reader will hardly have forgotten that there was another whose interest in that result was fully as serious and fully as painful. Loman had been counting on gaining the scholarship to a dead certainty. From the moment when it occurred to him he would be able to free himself of his money difficulties with Cripps by winning it, he had dismissed, or seemed to dismiss, all further anxiety from his mind. ”

“ This version of the incident was by no means pleasant to Loman, but to every one else it was highly diverting, and it actually made one or two of the Fifth think that Oliver, after all, had not done such a very discreditable thing in taking that angry word in silence. If only he had shown more spirit about the blow, they could have forgiven the rest.
Then followed more from the “Sixth Form Mouse”:—
“The Sixth held a Cabinet Council to-day to discuss who should go out for nuts. The choice fell on Callonby. I wonder why the Sixth are so fond of nuts. Why, monkeys eat nuts. ”

“ They run so very various, do good rods. You could get what they call a rod for ten bob, I dare say. But you wouldn’t hardly fancy that style of thing.”
“Oh no; if it was a really good one,” said Loman, “I wouldn’t mind giving a good price. I don’t want a rotten one.”
“That’s just it. This one I’m telling you of is as sound as a bell, and as strong as iron. And you know, as well as I do, these things are always all the better after a little use. My friend has only used this twice. ”

“ Cripps, angrily; “a promise is a promise, and I expect young swells as makes them to keep them, mind that.”
“Oh, of course I’ll keep them, Cripps. What I was saying was that they don’t pay you the money till the beginning of each year.”
Loman omitted to mention, as he had omitted to mention all along, that young gentlemen who win scholarships do not, as a rule, have the money they win put into their hands to do as they like with. ”

“ I’m bound to go and see Cripps. Besides,” said he to himself, “they’ll miss me to-morrow, whatever they say to-day.”
Next day, just when the great match was beginning, and the entire school was hanging breathless on the issue of every ball, Loman quietly slipped out of Saint Dominic’s, and walked rapidly and nervously down to the Cockchafer in Maltby. ”