"Is Miss Gold one of your customers?" I asked. "Miss Gold," said Mr. Bemerton, "is my best customer. She buys something from every catalogue, which is sent to her one post earlier than any one else. Do you know her?" Do I know her? Miss Gold and I were once very nearly... How long ago that was, and how different my life might have been! And now? I must certainly at once go to Esher to see her again. CHAPTER VII RECALLS OLD STRUGGLES IN THE EARLY DAYS OF GRACE AND INTRODUCES A TYRANT FROM LUDLOW On Easter Monday I went with Alderley and Naomi to see Lionel play for a mixed team against Surrey. It was the first match of the year and bitterly cold, but to watch real cricket again was an inducement that would have led me to brave any temperature. For--think of it!--it was my first match since the Gentlemen _v._ Players at Prince's in 1874 when the Gentlemen won by 61 runs. Thirty-four years ago! I was then twenty-four, and I went with my brother Tom and saw every ball bowled. Thirty-four years ago, I say, and yet what is that? To me it has been a lifetime; but what has it been to that huge man with the iron-grey beard? I had read his name in the papers as being among the players, and Lionel had shown me his letter inviting him to be one of the team; and yet it needed ocular testimony to believe that this was W.G.--that the W.G. I saw make 110 at Prince's in that 1874 match was still active in the field. "'Time has run back,'" I quoted to Lionel, "'and fetched the Age of Gold';" but he was not listening. Milton is not much in his line. All the Gentlemen _v._ Players matches were days of Grace at that time. At Prince's, I remember, G.F. came off in the first innings--93 not out. How we all hoped that Strachan would keep his end up to let him get the hundred, which meant more than it does to-day and was not yet called a century; but it was not to be. Then came Ross, but Alfred Shaw caught and bowled him at once, and G.F.'s chance was over. If was G.F. who in the second innings (when W.G. made his 110) caused an odd bit of trouble. Old Jim Lillywhite was bowling, with his beautiful easy delivery--just a brief trot to the wicket and a gentle natural swing of his left arm. Well, he sent up a ball to G.F., who put it tamely back right to the bowler's hands, or what would have been right to his hands had not W.G. intervened. W.G.'s intervention did not mean then quite what it would to-day: he was not then so wide as a church door, but he was enough; and before Jim could get round the obstacle the ball was out of danger. Poor Lillywhite, with G.F.'s 93 not out only too present to his mind, appealed first to one umpire and then the other, but both held that W.G. was not to blame: he had not aggravated his offence of bulk by any conscious action. The Players didn't like the decision at all, but G.F. made only 12, and the match was lost without even those runs.