To those that have time hanging all too heavily on their hands, and in good truth know not what to do—to those perchance that may, through lack of occupation, be compelled amid adverse circumstances, finding that anything is occasionally better than nothing, to peruse these jagged, untrimmed sentences—I would say this: that for many days, with a deep determination of purpose, I have perused the writings of our great cricketers—I have read the golden words of Grace, of Steel, of Ranjitsinhji—and have arrived hot-haste, sick at heart, at the conclusion that I cannot retell what has so often been told by them, and told so clearly, so succinctly, with such prodigious insight into the profound ramifications of this art. And so, like some pale-faced curate sitting fear-bound beneath the terrifying presence of a ruddy bishop, I must perforce scratch with a rusty pen of the bowlers I have met. In the ten years of my cricket life I have met many. Let us divide them into classes. We will take the old-time division; we will divide them into four—those that are of a slow pace, those that are of a medium pace, those that are fast, and those semi-moribund trundlers, the dealers in lobs. Having myself started in my early days with the firm conviction that this old game of cricket was the best game for boys and men of moderate years that the ingenuity of generations had invented, I became also convinced that to be a great bowler was the highest pinnacle of fame, and at the same time of usefulness, that a cricketer could hope to rest on. The work, without doubt, is hard, the labour of the day strenuous, but the pleasure of bowling a length with the wicket a bit in your favour, with a side that are trying to field, and not loafing as “little mounds of earth or waxen figures in a third-rate tailor’s shop,” is a goodly thing, a thing to dream of. And this craft of bowling is so sure, so certain. A great batsman may make a mistake, even on the Oval in the height of summer, even on the Oval in the height of perfection—and all those that have played there know the miraculous opportunities for run-getting this ground affords—he may make a mistake, let us say, bowled Richardson, 0! Well, for the day he is done—up to now of no use to his side, of no use to himself. Now, take the great bowler on a wicket of this excellence, or of any other. He can make a mistake, drop a slower one a bit too short, overpitch the well-intentioned yorker, falter in his stride and be placed to leg for four. What matter from a selfish point of view? His fun for the day has not departed. He bowls and bowls, and continues to bowl; and probably the blind goddess gives in the end the wherewithal to be cheerful. Therefore, on this miserable lowest ground of self-interest, be a bowler!