Then came the happy time of cricket. The danger of the thing being over for that whole innings, you have nothing to do but to lie on the ground with a cigar, and explain how you had intended to have caught that ball, and hit it between long field off and cover point; when you holloa out, “Butter-fingers!” and “Wide!” and “Run it out!” My happiness, however, was but of short duration; the new bowler delivered his deadly weapon against the rest in a manner he had known better than to practise upon me. Wilkins, too, seemed to derive new strength from every bail he struck towards the sky, and reaped the air with that tremendous arm of his more terribly than ever. In an hour and twenty minutes, we were fagging out on our side. The president had his choice of places; and, having observed that the wicket-keepers had either stopped the balls, or much diminished their velocity before they arrived at long-stop, I declared for that happy post. Alas! this was the case no longer. Swift as thought, and infinitely more substantial, the balls rushed with unabated fury beside me; hardly, by leaping into the air, and stretching my legs very wide apart, could I escape the fearful concussion. “Stop ’em! Stop ’em!” screamed the fielders. “Why the deuce don’t he stop ’em?” bawled old Grogram, indignantly. So I waited my opportunity, watching, hat in hand, till one came slower than usual; and then I pounced upon him from behind, as a boy does on a butterfly. The crown of my hat was carried away, indeed, but the missile could not force its way through my person, and I threw it up to the man that hallo’d for it most in triumph; but my reputation as a cricketer was gone for ever. At dinner I was comparatively successful. Lord Wapshaw was on my right; Sir Chuffin Stumps on my left; two long lines of gentlemen in flannels were terminated, perspectively, by Grogram, opposite; the archdeacon said grace; my new bowler assisted in waiting at table; and everything was upon the most gorgeous scale. Presently, however, the rain came down in torrents, and, in spite of the patent imperviousness of the tent, as vouched for by the vice-president, some umbrellas had to be borrowed from the hall (which were never returned). After dinner, there was a friend of his lordship to be ballotted for, and I distributed the little balls, as directed, and sent round the box. The rule of exclusion was one black ball in ten. There were four black balls to thirty white balls, and I had to publish the fact to all present. “My friend black-balled, sir?” said the irascible peer. “Impossible! Did you do it?--did you?--did you?” he asked of everybody successively, amidst roars of laughter at his utter want of appreciation of the fundamental end and aim of the institution of vote by ballot. “There must be some mistake, sir,” said he, when they had each and all declined to satisfy such an extraordinary enquiry. “Mr. Blathers, try them again.”