“I wish I had yours. You’re making them come as quick off the pitch as you did two years ago. I wish old Boots Ommaney was here again.” “I’d rather have him to bowl to than the next man in. Ommaney always plays like a book, but Swallow’s the man to knock you off your length in the first over!” Swallow looked that man as he came in grinning but square-jawed, with a kind of sunny storm-light in his keen, skilled eyes. It was capital fun to find this boy suddenly at his best again; good for the boy, better for the Eleven, and by no means bad for an old man of thirty-eight who was actually on the point of turning out once more for the Gentlemen at Lord’s. Practice and the bowler apart, however, it would never do for the Old Boys to go to pieces after leading a rather weak school Eleven as it was only proper that they should. It was time for a stand, and certainly a stand was made. But A. G. Swallow did not knock Jan off his length; he played him with flattering care, and was content to make his runs off Cave. Jan made a change at the other end, but went on pegging away himself. Wilman began to treat him with less respect than the cricketer of highest class; in club cricket, to be sure, there were few sounder or more consistent players than the Swiller. He watched the ball on to the very middle of a perpendicular bat, and played the one that came with Jan’s arm so near to his left leg that there was no room for it between bat and pad. And he played it so hard that with luck it went to the boundary without really being hit at all. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, went up in sedate yet slightly accelerated succession. Jan was trying all he knew, and now he had Cave back at the other end. Another ten or so, and he felt that he himself must take a rest, especially as A. G. Swallow was beginning to hit ruthlessly all round the wicket. Yet Wilman’s was the wicket he most wanted, and it was on Wilman that he was trying all his wiles—but one. That fatal leg-break was not in his repertoire for the day; he had forsworn it to himself before taking the field, and he kept his vow like a man. What he was trying to do was to pitch the other ball a little straighter, a fraction slower, and just about three inches shorter than all the rest; at last he did it to perfection. Wilman played forward pretty hard, the ball came skimming between the bowler and mid-off, and Jan shot out his left hand before recovering his balance. The ball hit it in the right place, his fingers closed automatically, and he had made a very clever catch off his own bowling. “Well caught, old fellow!” cried Evan from mid-off before any of them. “I was afraid I’d baulked you.” The others were as loud in their congratulations, and the field rang with cheers. But Evan kept Jan buttonholed at mid-off, and they had a whisper together while the new batsman was on his way out. “What about bowling them all out by lunch? You might almost do it after all!” “I mean to, now.”