“Was it _very_ clever of me?” said Grace. “Do you know it makes me laugh awfully to see the way you men try to dodge and hedge and that sort o’ thing. You’re that horribly clumsy. There was old Dimmy’s face saying as plain as print, ‘Don’t look, _please_, till I’ve put it away, will you?’ But let’s have that ball, old chap, and I’ll see if I can’t lick you into shape a bit. I _do_ mean to do the right thing by you, you know.” Pitching a single stump on yesterday’s wicket, she got behind it, and caused me to begin bowling from the opposite crease. The first ball I tried to deliver almost wrenched my unaccustomed right arm from its socket. It pitched about halfway down and trickled along the ground till it ultimately rolled a good yard wide of the mark. My tutor raised her brows with a mild air of protest. “My dear man,” she said, “is that what you call bowling? It strikes me that it’s more like bowls than anything.” “I’m only loosening my arm, you know,” said I weakly. “Keep pegging away,” said she, valiantly suppressing a smile. Fancy the other side adopting this kind of tone. And the Optimist _was_ enjoying it. “Cheery,” said Grace, “go and lend a hand to Biffin. There is he tugging away like a horse, and you stand grinning at him.” “It was not at Biffin, I can assure you,” the Optimist said. “I must have been mistaken then,” said the adroit Grace; “it was only your way of looking interested.” “Oh, no, it was not,” said the Optimist, “I was laughing at----” “Don’t interrupt, please,” said my tutor, “and don’t argue.” Really my tutor was the very essence of good breeding! I continued to bowl without enjoyment, without inspiration, without conviction even. For I was distressingly alive to the fact that my bowling was exactly what bowling ought not to be. To adopt the technical language of my tutor: “It’s a good length, Dimmy, _at your own end_. Be careful, old chap, or you’ll trap your toes.” It had neither length, nor pace, nor direction. It had absolutely nothing to recommend it. There was a timidity, a meekness, an air of apology about it that positively invited batsmen to hit it very hard indeed. “You really must get your arm a bit higher,” said my tutor. “Bring it right over, you know. And get your fingers round the seam--so; only two besides the thumb. Tuck t’others underneath a bit, and give ’em a sort of jerk, and flick your wrist a bit just as you deliver.” “Ye-es,” said I; “ye-es, ye-es.” “Got the idea?” said Grace. “Perfectly,” said I. “Let’s see you do it then.” Alas! I did do it, and the ball went spinning out of my hand at right angles, and hit Biffin very tenderly on the head. “That’s how you get ‘devil,’ you know,” said my tutor, with a very kindergarten kind of air, and pretending at the same time to be quite unconscious of this melancholy incident. “It’s _the_ devil,” I said simply. “I must show you how to do it,” said my tutor. “Do, please, by all means,” said I quickly.