At this point Mr. Jones gave vent to a most regrettable remark about the Babe, and his nose swelled a little. Such a result was excusable, for the Babe’s diabolical ingenuity in attacking him had only been equalled by his diabolical luck. Twice,--for the ground was not well-rolled--had his ball come skipping and hopping along, and had pounced upon his adversary’s like a playful kitten, and twice he had cannoned violently off a hoop onto it. But about this point his luck had shown signs of failing, and he sheltered himself for a few strokes near his partner, who together with Gingham had been plodding slowly and steadily round the hoops. Altogether the game had been like “Air with Variations,” the Babe and Mr. Jones taking brilliant firework excursions across the theme. But for a little while it seemed as if the cup of the Babe’s iniquities was full, and for ten minutes he kept falling into the hand of his adversaries with the most surprising persistence. But the end was not yet. Half an hour later the position was as follows: Reggie and Gingham were rovers, the Babe had not been through the cage coming back, but Jones had only the two last hoops to pass, and it was Jones’s turn. The Babe was getting a little excited, and the lust for vengeance was on Jones. He had even gone so far as to advise the Babe what to do on one occasion, and the Babe had answered him shortly in a high, tremulous voice. The Babe’s ball was in position for the cage, and theoretically Jones was wired to him. But his ball, violently and maliciously struck, curled in a complicated manner off the cage wires and hit the Babe’s. “That’s a beastly fluke,” said that gentleman in an excited contralto. Jones could afford to be generous. “It did turn it off a little,” he said pacifically, “but I think it would have hit it anyhow.” “Then you think wrong,” said the Babe outwardly calm. The laurestinus quivered. Jones became a rover, and mobilised with his partner, but not very close. The Babe failed to mobilise with Reggie. Gingham shot at his partner and missed. Reggie mobilised successfully with the Babe. _Quem deus vult perdere, prius dementat._ Jones ought to have separated them but having hit his partner, he tried to put him out, failed, but left himself and his partner both close to the stump. The Babe smiled, and there was a tea-party of four. He smiled again a little unkindly. He put Gingham out, and he hit Jones’s ball. A moment afterwards a frenzied croquet ball bounded into the net of the tennis-players, and caused the spoon-faced man, for the first time that afternoon, to serve two consecutive faults. Then the Babe went back to his hoop. Gingham was of a peaceful disposition but rather timid. He had, however, caught a glimpse of Jones’s face as he walked off to the lawn-tennis court, and it might reasonably, he said afterwards, have frightened a bolder man than he. So he turned to the Babe.