"Come along then. I've got the rippingest bat. But you must promise not to bowl too fast." I had said that I knew all the things to say, but as a matter of fact there is only one thing to say: "You should have come out to 'er, sir." (Or, I suppose, in Miss Middleton's case, "You should have come out to him, madam.") It's a silly remark to make, because it is just what one is always doing. At school I could come out to anything that was straight and not too high; the difficulty lay in staying in. Nobody ever told me how to do that. Miss Middleton led the way to a walled-in tennis lawn, which lay next to the broccoli tops and things, and was kept away from it by only six feet of brick. If it had simply been a question of cabbage I should have said nothing, but there would be grapes there too. "I know," said Miss Middleton. "But we must play against a wall. Don't bowl too much to leg." I hadn't bowled since October the Fourth. The first post-October ball was a trifle over-pitched, and a little too much to the right. All the same I was just saying, "You should have come out to that one," when there was a crash from the direction of long-on. "By Jove, I didn't know you were so good. Was that the grapes?" "How awful! Yes. It simply seemed to fly off the bat. I did ask you not to bowl there, didn't I?" She looked so penitent that I had to comfort her. "It's all right," I said consolingly. "I had a man there. You would have been out all the way. Besides," I went on, "a little air will do the grapes good. They stay all the time in one hot room, and then when they go out into the cold, they don't muffle up, and the natural consequence is---- Or am I thinking of influenza?" "Never mind. We must remember not to do it again, that's all. Give me some to cut." There are several ways of cutting. For myself, I was taught to cut "square" with the left leg across and "late" with the right, the consequence being that I can do neither. W.G. (to work downwards) generally uses the fore-arm for the stroke, Ranji the wrist. Miss Middleton keeps both feet together and puts her whole body into it; and the direction in which the ball travels is towards long-on. There was another crash. "Golf is your game," I said admiringly. "You lay it dead on the greenhouse every time." "I say, what _shall_ we do? Father will be furious." I looked at my watch. "I can just catch the three-twenty-five," I said. "Oh, don't be a coward, when it's all your fault for bowling so badly." "Perhaps the glass is insured," I suggested. "It is generally." "It's insured against hail," she said doubtfully. I looked at the sky. It was one of the most beautiful blues I have seen. "No," said Miss Middleton sadly. "It will be a point for lawyers to argue, I fancy, what is actually meant by hail. You would probably define it at once as aqueous vapour cooled down in the atmosphere to the freezing point of water." "I don't know. Perhaps I should."