“It’s not a tale that wants much varnish, sir, if that’s what he means,” said Sprawson, happily. “I’ll tell you the facts, sir, and Cave can check them if he’ll be so kind. You said we should find the Major’s carriage waiting for us outside the quad, and so we did. It was the landau, sir, a very good one nicely hung, and capital cattle tooling us along like lords. The country was looking beautiful. Roads rather dusty, but a smell of hay that turned it into a sort of delicate snuff, sir. It really was a most delightful drive.” “Speak for yourself, Sprawson, if you don’t mind.” “I shouldn’t dream of speaking for you, Cave. You didn’t seem to me to take any interest in the scenery. I may be wrong, but I couldn’t help thinking your heart was at the wicket, flogging our poor bowling all over the parish, and I was so thankful to be where I was! But that was only on the way, sir, it was nothing to what we were in for at the other end. The footman said we should find the Major on the lawn. So we did, sir—playing tennis like a three-year-old—and half the county looking on!” “Not a garden-party?” inquired Heriot incredulously. “That sort of thing, sir.” “My poor fellows! Pray go on.” “Of course we couldn’t interrupt him in the middle of his set, sir, and when he’d finished it he crossed straight over and started another without ever seeming to see that we were there. Nobody else took any notice of us either,” continued Sprawson, with a sly glance at the still stately Cave. “We might have been a pair of garden statues, or tennis professionals waiting to play an exhibition match.” “It reminds me of Dr. Johnson and Lord Chesterfield,” said Heriot darkly. “Your fame is perhaps more parochial, Sprawson. But is it possible that you, Cave, are personally unknown to Major Mangles?” “I haven’t the least idea,” replied Charles Cave magnificently. “I should have said he might have known me by the times I’ve bowled him.” “And you never thought of coming away again? I shouldn’t have blamed you, upon my word.” “Of course we thought of it, sir,” said Sprawson. “But the carriage had gone round to the stables, and we couldn’t very well order it ourselves.” “I should have walked.” “It’s a terrible tramp, sir, on a hot afternoon, and in rubber soles!” Sprawson winced involuntarily at the recollection; but the thought of his companion consoled him yet again. “Especially after bowling all the morning,” he added, “and expecting to go in the moment you got back!” “Well, that wouldn’t have been necessary,” said Heriot. “It must be some satisfaction to you that the Sixth won so easily, even without your certain century, Cave.” “It doesn’t alter the fact that he had to walk back after all,” said Sprawson, when the greater man had been given ample time to answer for himself.