“Wish you luck, old man,” said some person of benevolent disposition, as I issued forth. It is never exactly kind, however, to wish luck to the keenly sensitive, as it leads them to think that they’ll certainly need luck, and plenty of it, if they’re going to stay long. From the Artistic Standpoint (capital letters, please, Mr. Printer!), it is a thousand pities that I cannot say that when I stepped from the pavilion on this great occasion to open the innings with my Captain, a man whose name had penetrated to the remotest corners of the cricket world, I held my head up with an air of conscious power. Why was I not, as the Hero of this story, prepared to do the thing in style, in the manner of the most accepted writers? Of course I ought to have marched to the wicket, my heart big with courage, calm in the knowledge that the Hero never does get less than fifty. I ought to have been ready to chastise Villainy in the person of the Demon Bowler, by hitting his length balls for six on the slightest provocation. I am sure that no less than this is expected of me by every right-minded reader. Nor am I blind by any means to my obligations; yet somehow it is so much easier to get runs with the pen than with the bat. At least I have always found it so! I daresay that, except for being a trifle pale, I looked quite happy to all but the trained observer. I don’t suppose that ten persons of the shouting thousands present had the faintest notion that the trim-built chap of medium height who walked in with H. J. Halliday, his bat tucked beneath his arm, as he fastened on his glove, had limbs of paper and a heart of fear. There was nought to indicate that there was a dreadful buzzing in his ears, a black mist before his eyes, that his knee-joints were threatening to let him down at every step, and that he was praying to be bowled first ball, to be put out of his misery at once. When you go in to bat, it is not that you dread aught special and particular. You would cheerfully endure anything rather than your present ordeals. You are not afraid of getting a “duck.” On the contrary, you’ll be almost happy if you get one. It is the mere sensation of an impending something, you know not what, that plays skittles with your impressionable nature. “’Mind taking first ball, Halliday?” I said hoarsely. “If you like,” said he; then added, “Just play your usual, and you’re bound to get ’em.” True cricketers are the soul of kindness.