"You've loosened one of my front teeth," said Mike, with a grin, "if that's any comfort to you." "I couldn't eat anything except porridge this morning. My jaw still aches." For the first time during the conversation their eyes met, and the humorous side of the thing struck them simultaneously. They began to laugh. "What fools we must have looked," said Adair. "_You_ were all right. I must have looked rotten. I've never had the gloves on in my life. I'm jolly glad no one saw us except Smith, who doesn't count. Hello, there's the bell. We'd better be moving on. What about this match? Not much chance of it from the look of the sky at present." "It might clear before eleven. You'd better get changed, anyhow, at the interval, and hang about in case." "All right. It's better than doing Thucydides with Downing. We've got math till the interval, so I don't see anything of him all day; which won't hurt me." "He isn't a bad sort of chap, when you get to know him," said Adair. "I can't have done, then. I don't know which I'd least soon be, Downing or a black beetle, except that if one was Downing one could tread on the black beetle. Dash this rain. I got about half a pint down my neck just then. We shan't get a game today, or anything like it. As you're crocked, I'm not sure that I care much. You've been sweating for years to get the match on, and it would be rather rot playing it without you." "I don't know that so much. I wish we could play because I'm certain, with you and Smith, we'd walk into them. They probably aren't sending down much of a team, and really, now that you and Smith are turning out, we've got a jolly hot lot. There's quite decent batting all the way through, and the bowling isn't so bad. If only we could have given this M.C.C. lot a really good hammering, it might have been easier to get some good fixtures for next season. You see, it's all right for a school like Wrykyn, but with a small place like this you simply can't get the best teams to give you a match till you've done something to show that you aren't absolute rotters at the game. As for the schools, they're worse. They'd simply laugh at you. You were cricket secretary at Wrykyn last year. What would you have done if you'd had a challenge from Sedleigh? You'd either have laughed till you were sick, or else had a fit at the mere idea of the thing." Mike stopped. "By Jove, you've struck about the brightest scheme on record. I never thought of it before. Let's get a match on with Wrykyn." "What! They wouldn't play us." "Yes, they would. At least, I'm pretty sure they would. I had a letter from Strachan, the captain, yesterday, saying that the Ripton match had had to be scratched owing to illness. So they've got a vacant date. Shall I try them? I'll write to Strachan tonight, if you like. And they aren't strong this year. We'll smash them. What do you say?" Adair was as one who has seen a vision. "By Jove," he said at last, "if we only could!" 28