"I could have sworn it was in that pocket," he said.

"You _haven't_ lost it?" queried Trevor again.

"He has," said Clowes, confidently. "If you want to know where that bat
is, I should say you'd find it somewhere between the baths and the
statue. At the foot of the statue, for choice. It seems to me--correct
me if I am wrong--that you have been and gone and done it, me broth av
a bhoy."

O'Hara gave up the search.

"It's gone," he said. "Man, I'm most awfully sorry. I'd sooner have
lost a ten-pound note."

"I don't see why you should lose either," snapped Trevor. "Why the
blazes can't you be more careful."

O'Hara was too penitent for words. Clowes took it on himself to point
out the bright side.

"There's nothing to get sick about, really," he said. "If the thing
doesn't turn up, though it probably will, you'll simply have to tell
the Old Man that it's lost. He'll have another made. You won't be asked
for it till just before Sports Day either, so you will have plenty of
time to find it."

The challenge cups, and also the bats, had to be given to the
authorities before the sports, to be formally presented on Sports Day.