"He says a racket is bad for you," Ethel understood from Kenyon (to whom it was a very serious matter); "makes you play with a crooked bat, and teaches you to spoon. So there's an end to snob! But what do you think? He's going to take me into the town to choose a decent bat; and we're going in for regular practice on the far lawn--John and all--if the governor lets us. C. J.'s going to coach me. Think of being coached by C. J. Forrester!" "Father is sure to let you," said Ethel; and certainly Mr. Harwood did not say no; but his consent was coldly given, and one thing he stipulated almost sternly. "I won't have Kenyon run. I shall put a stop to it if he does. It might kill him." "Ah, he has told me about that." Forrester added, simply, "I am so sorry!" Kenyon, in fact, in explaining the system of scoring at snob--a most ingenious system--had said: "You see, I mayn't run my runs. I know the boundaries don't make half such a good game, but I can't help it. What's wrong? I'm sure _I_ can't tell you. I've been to heaps of doctors, but they never say much to me; they just mess about and then send you back to the room where you look at the papers. Mother used to take me to London on purpose, and the governor's done so twice. It's my hip, or some rot. It's a jolly bore, for it feels all right, and I'm positive I _could_ run, and ride, and go to school. Blow the doctors!" "But obey them," C. J. had said, seriously; "you should go in for obeying orders, Kenyon." They got the bat. It was used a great deal during those few days, the too few days of C. J.'s visit; and was permitted to repose in C. J.'s cricket-bag, cheek by jowl with bruised veterans that had served with honour at Lord's and at the Oval. Kenyon was very mindful of those services, and handled the big bats even more reverently than he shook his hero's hand. They lent themselves to this sort of thing more readily than C. J. did. Small doubt that Kenyon--at all events at first--would have had his hero a trifle more heroic than the Almighty had made him. There was nothing intrinsically venerable in his personality, as there might have been. He was infinitely more friendly than Kenyon had dreamt of finding him; he was altogether nicer; but he did lack the vague inexpressible distinction with which the boy's imagination invested the heroes of _Lillywhite's Guide_.