My pitiful bowling has already been the subject of various painful home truths. But I do believe that my fielding was not unworthy of kind phrases. At least, it argues unusual excellence to gain the open approbation of the great. Yet when I stopped three smashing half-volley hits in sharp succession, and cut the knees of Archie’s unmentionables in a fall I had in endeavouring to combine the duties of cover-point and the bowler, I heard Grace sigh most distinctly, and Archie said,-- “Dimsdale, are these acrobatic performances intended to divert Grace’s attention from run-getting? or are they merely to afford a little variety entertainment to the lookers-on? If that’s the idea, I think we can compliment you on a daring and original turn.” But I repeat that I heard Grace distinctly sigh. Could it be that my fielding was playing havoc with that relentless bosom? Oh, that this be so! Our scores were now level. And was it not strange that, though Grace had been making runs precisely as she pleased, she suddenly ceased to get them altogether? Instead of playing a wonderfully aggressive and confident game, she began to vacillate. Nay, she half-heartedly blocked balls that she had been previously hitting to the fence. What _could_ it mean? Was it possible that good fielding was in truth the one weakness of Grace the unsusceptible? What more likely? Was she not a cricketer to her finger-tips? and is not sound fielding as likely to appeal to persons of that calibre as the higher virtues? “What’s old Grace rotting at?” cried Charlie. “My opinion is she wants Dimmy to bowl her,” said George. “Just look how she’s nursing the bowling now,” the Optimist said. “She might be playin’ Humphreys, the way in which she pokes at those cuckoos,” said T. S. M. Grace had now been more than two overs without getting a run. And the agonized expression that she wore seemed to say quite plainly, “Oh, Dimmy! _why_ don’t you bowl me?” Yes, my fielding had done it. But of bowling her I was, alas! physically incapable. In my anxiety to improve I got worse. Indeed, I was so totally overborne by the requirements of the situation that I must have given the match away myself by bowling a wide had not Grace had the presence of mind to step across her wicket, and thereby just succeed in covering a ball that looked like hitting the fat barrister at point. Her face appeared to say, “Oh, Dimmy! _do_ keep off wides and no balls!”