"Oh, that's an old yarn. I heard that when I was a little boy about some bowler whose name, I think, was Jackson." "Was it a big dog?" "No, no, son; it wasn't a dog at all." "It was a cat," said Dimples. "No; I tell you it never happened." "But tell us about Spofforth," cried Laddie. Dimples, with his imaginative mind, usually wandered, while the elder came eagerly back to the point. "Was he very fast?" "He could be very fast. I have heard cricketers who had played against him say that his yorker--that is a ball which is just short of a full pitch--was the fastest ball in England. I have myself seen his long arm swing round and the wicket go down before ever the batsman had time to ground his bat." "Oo!" from both beds. "He was a tall, thin man, and they called him the Fiend. That means the Devil, you know." "And _was_ he the Devil?" "No, Dimples, no. They called him that because he did such wonderful things with the ball." "Can the Devil do wonderful things with a ball?" Daddy felt that he was propagating devil-worship and hastened to get to safer ground. "Spofforth taught us how to bowl and Blackham taught us how to keep wicket. When I was young we always had another fielder, called the long- stop, who stood behind the wicket-keeper. I used to be a thick, solid boy, so they put me as long-stop, and the balls used to bounce off me, I remember, as if I had been a mattress." Delighted laughter. "But after Blackham came wicket-keepers had to learn that they were there to stop the ball. Even in good second-class cricket there were no more long-stops. We soon found plenty of good wicket-keeps--like Alfred Lyttelton and MacGregor--but it was Blackham who showed us how. To see Spofforth, all india-rubber and ginger, at one end bowling, and Blackham, with his black beard over the bails waiting for the ball at the other end, was worth living for, I can tell you." Silence while the boys pondered over this. But Laddie feared Daddy would go, so he quickly got in a question. If Daddy's memory could only be kept going there was no saying how long they might keep him. "Was there no good bowler until Spofforth came?" "Oh, plenty, my boy. But he brought something new with him. Especially change of pace--you could never tell by his action up to the last moment whether you were going to get a ball like a flash of lightning, or one that came slow but full of devil and spin. But for mere command of the pitch of a ball I should think Alfred Shaw, of Nottingham, was the greatest bowler I can remember. It was said that he could pitch a ball twice in three times upon a half-crown!" "Oo!" And then from Dimples:-- "Whose half-crown?" "Well, anybody's half-crown." "Did he get the half-crown?" "No, no; why should he?" "Because he put the ball on it." "The half-crown was kept there always for people to aim at," explained Laddie. "No, no, there never was a half-crown." Murmurs of remonstrance from both boys.