He produced a second ball from the same pocket from which the first had come. I could scarcely believe my eyes. But I was discovering, with Horatio, that there were more things in heaven and earth than had been contained in my philosophy. Since Mr. Benyon professed such affection for the style of bowling which I favoured, I sent him down another sample. This time it was fairly straight--by which I mean that it would not have pitched more than a yard from the wickets if Mr. Benyon had allowed it to pitch, which he didn't. He treated it as he had done the first--he drove it, with terrific force, right above my head. "Never mind about the ball," he said. "I've got another in my pocket." He had--the third. And in the same pocket from which the other two had come. My fourth ball he treated to a swipe to square-leg. He seemed to have a partiality for swiping. Quite unnecessarily he allowed that this was so. "I do like a ball which I can get a smack at," he remarked as he produced a fourth ball from the same pocket of his tightly-fitting trousers which had contained the other three. "A swipe does warm me so. Your kind of bowling, mister, 's just the thing." It was kind of him to say so; though, to my thinking, his remark did not convey a compliment. When he sent my fifth ball out of sight I wished that his love for swiping had been less, or my bowling of another kind. The sixth, however, which he also produced from the same wondrous store contained in his breeches pocket, he contented himself with what he called "snicking." "That's what I call a pretty snick," he said. The "snick" in question was a tremendous drive to deep mid-off. It was stopped, quite involuntarily, by Mr. Hawthorn and Mr. Hedges. So far as I could see, it stunned the pair of them. Neither of them made the slightest attempt to return the ball. "Run it out!" cried Mr. Benyon. He and Mr. Barker began to run. They ran four, and then they ran two more, and still the ball was not thrown in. Mr. Benyon urged the fielders on. "Hurry up, Bill Hedges!" Mr. Hedges did not hurry up; he never could have hurried up, even if his manner of "fielding" the ball had not wholly deprived him of his wind. But the ball was at last thrown in--when the pair had run eleven. Forty-one runs off his first over was a result calculated to take the conceit out of the average bowler. And Mr. Benyon's last performance, his "snick," had placed him at the other wicket, prepared to receive Mr. Sapsworth's bowling--when it came. "Now, Bob Sapsworth, I'll have a smack at you!" he said. He had. I felt for Mr. Sapsworth. But since I had suffered it was only fair that he should suffer too. Crack--smack--whack went the balls out of sight in all directions. And for each ball that disappeared Mr. Benyon produced another from his breeches pocket. I felt that these things must be happening to me in a dream. I was rapidly approaching the condition in which Alice must have been in Wonderland--prepared for anything.