And that was how I was made P.N.C.C., almost without a struggle. In the course of a week I received a letter from Grogram, saying that there would be no difficulty whatever about anything; he would settle about the dining-tent, and the dressing-tent, and the cooking-tent, and I should only have the contracts for food and the wine-tasting to manage; the hiring of a bowler, the cutting and rolling of the grass. The coming matches for the year--I should, of course, arrange about myself; and I must be sure, he wrote, to let all the members of the club know of the day of meeting, and all the playing members of every match-day, and to dun Lord Wapshaw for his two years’-due subscriptions, as the treasurer didn’t like to--with some other little matters; and, by the bye, did I happen to have my cricket toggery complete yet? as, if not, he (Grogram) could let me have a registered belt almost for nothing, because he had grown out of it, he was sorry to say, himself; also some improved galvanised india-rubber leg-guards, and some tubular batting-gloves, and a catapult--remarkably cheap. The postscript said, “of course you will come out in flannels and spike-soles.” I really thought when I first read this letter that I should have died with anxiety. I showed it to Mrs. Blathers, and she fairly burst into tears, and it was hours before we could either of us look our difficulties calmly in the face. Flannels! I had at that moment upon my person the only description of flannel garment which I possessed--a jerkin coming down no distance at all, and not to be dreamt of as a reception-dress to the club and half the county upon the first of May; spike-soles I did happen to have, being a skater, and set them out accordingly; but what possible use a pair of skates could be for cricket I could not imagine. The rest of the things I sent to Grogram for, who accommodated me with them very good-naturedly for fifteen pounds fifteen shillings. I put them all on--one way and another--but could make no use of the catapult, except to sit in it, and my youngest child had convulsions, because, she sobbed, Pa looked so like that dreadful diver who lived in the pond at the Polytechnic. I issued all the circulars, and signed myself the obedient servant of two hundred and forty-six strange gentlemen. I set my gardener and my coachman to roll out the cricket-ground. I tasted the bad sherry of the three Nettleton wine-merchants, and made two of them my enemies for life. My advertisements for a bowler were answered by a host of youths, with immense professions and very limited employment; some were from Lord’s, some from the Oval, “the Maribun know’d him well enough,” averred one young gentleman; another--with a great hollow in his hand from constant practice--affirmed, that “if I wanted hart, there I had it, and no mistake;” by which he meant that Art was enshrined in his proper person--and him I chose.