“That is all I wanted to say to you,” he said, “and I feel sure you won’t forget it. Now when does the old boys’ match begin? Twelve, isn’t it? I hope you’ll be in form to-day with your bowling. We haven’t beaten the old boys for six years, but I don’t think we’ve ever had such a good chance as we have to-day. The wicket ought to suit you, if the sun comes out.” Gradually the sense of this dawned on David, its tremendous import. He flushed with incredulous pride. “Oh, but fellows like Hughes will hit me all round the clock, sir,” he said. “They will if you think they are going to,” remarked the Head. “That’s all then, David. Hughes is staying with me over the night. You’ll sup with us.” “Yes, sir; thank you, sir,” said David. In spite of his failure to win a scholarship David walked on air as he went back to the packing of his play-box, for far more important, from his own point of view, than the getting of a scholarship was the fact that he was going to Adams’s. For a minute he wondered about what the Head had said concerning things that were worse than stealing; but, having been told to forget all about it, instantly proceeded to put the question out of his mind in favour of more agreeable topics. And there was no doubt that the Head implied that it was he who might win the old boys’ match for the school. Jolly decent of him, considering that it was he who had certainly lost the Eagles match for them. Soon after the great men from Eton and Harrow and Marchester began to arrive, and each appeared more enormous than the last. To-day, however, there was no baleful father to trouble David’s peace, and in the half-hour before the match began he went and bowled to Hughes at the nets, who incontinently hit him three times running out of the field. But David had the true temper of the slow bowler who expects to be hit, while he studies the hitter, and observed that Hughes was not nearly so comfortable with a slightly faster ball pitched a little outside the leg stump, and (if luck accompanied the intention) breaking in. He quite mistimed two that David sent down, upon which, having got this valuable hint, David bowled no more of that variety, lest Hughes should get used to them. Then, as there were plenty of bowlers at Hughes’s net, he went on to the next, where Cookson, who had left two years before, was batting. There, again, the wily David tried the ball which Hughes did not care about, but found that Cookson had a special affection for it, and hit it juicily to square leg. But he was less confident with a very slow ball, such as Hughes had hit so contemptuously; so here was a second bit of information. David committed that to memory, and tried a third net, where he had no success of any sort or kind.