First published in October 1948 by Charles Skilton Ltd, London, in an edition of 11,000 copies,[1] the second in a series of post-WWII hardback novels, it was subsequently reprinted by them in 1949, 1953 and 1959, and by Hawk in January 1991.

[2] It has a dust jacket, colour frontispiece and black and white illustrations by R. J. Macdonald, who became seriously ill following a gardening accident; this delayed publication and the novel was eventually published alongside the third book in the series, Billy Bunter's Barring-Out in October 1948.

[3] After the closure of The Magnet in May 1940 due to wartime paper shortages, author Charles Hamilton was contractually barred by the publisher, Amalgamated Press, from continuing to write Greyfriars stories.

The next morning a large number of £10 notes are found to be missing from a drawer in the Head’s desk.

Bunter says the note is the long-expected remittance from home, but he is oddly reluctant to let Mrs. Mimble in the Tuck Shop change it.