I myself moved towards the scoring-tent. The state of things within it at once impressed me as peculiar. It had been filled, a little time ago, with jovial faces. Now, the owners of those faces might have been attendants at a funeral. And many a man has had a livelier following to the grave than I saw assembled then. Fenning came shambling into the tent. I spoke to him. "Mr. Benyon's bowling was too much for you, eh, Fenning?" Unless I am mistaken, Mr. Fenning wiped a tear out of his eye. He certainly put up his hand and rubbed the optic with his knuckles. "I never seed such bowling! 'Tain't fair!" he said. "What is there unfair about it, Fenning?" "It comes so sharp. I never seed the ball afore there was my wickets down." I smiled. Not so the company. They regarded Mr. Fenning's words with different eyes. Mr. Hedges gave expression to the general opinion. "You ain't never seen such bowling afore, and you won't never see such bowling again. 'Cause why? 'Cause it's a ghost that's bowling, not a man!" Mr. Fenning looked about him with open eyes, and with open mouth as well. "A ghost!" he mumbled. "A ghost!" said Mr. Hedges. I expostulated. "Come, Mr. Hedges, you frighten the lad. I am surprised, too, that a man of your age and experience and wisdom should talk nonsense about ghosts." Mr. Hedges looked up at me a little sharply. "If he ain't a ghost, what's become of the things that he's took off?" I asked him what he meant. He pointed across the ground. "He took off his hat and his coat and his scarf, and he laid 'em on the grass. He ain't touched 'em, and no one ain't took 'em, yet they're gone! We saw 'em go. If he ain't a ghost, what's become of the things that he's took off?" Mr. Hedges grew a little excited. I looked in the direction in which the old gentleman was pointing. The garments he referred to had apparently vanished, but, of course, their disappearance was susceptible of a most natural explanation. I should have maintained this proposition with more confidence had it not been for something which immediately occurred. Mr. Benyon was preparing to deliver his first ball to Mr. Sapsworth, and as I eyed him I noted the extremely unworkmanlike attitude in which Mr. Sapsworth awaited the delivery. Preparatory to delivering the ball Mr. Benyon divested himself of his remarkable coat, which matched his trousers, and in so doing disclosed a waistcoat which matched his coat. Neatly folding up the garment, he laid it beside him on the ground. No sooner did it touch the ground than it disappeared. I am unable to say how, but it did, and that before the eyes of all the lookers-on. This singular behaviour on the part of that curious garment took me by surprise. After that I was prepared to excuse a certain amount of nervousness on the part of Mr. Sapsworth. To Mr. Benyon Mr. Sapsworth's nervousness seemed to afford positive pleasure. He cried, in a tone which was perhaps _meant_ to be jovial: