To my infinite pleasure, I immediately saw that the second was his usual shortish one. I promptly prepared to help myself to another three, stepped into my wicket so to do, but was so anxious to seize my opportunity that I had not troubled to note exactly how short it was. Therefore it rose a little higher than I expected, and I was also a little bit too soon. It hit me just above the pad with an almost caressing gentleness. “How _was_ that?” said the bowler, turning round to the umpire. This didn’t bother me in the least. I merely felt a trifle annoyed that my ardour had caused me to let off so bad a ball. But my pleasant meditations were suddenly disturbed by adjacent voices,-- “Chuckerrupp!” It never entered my head that I could be out by any possibility. The ball was a very vulgar long hop. I looked at the umpire with an air of bewilderment. He had a stolid solemnity that was funereal. I saw his hand go up. Thereon, with the blood buzzing into my ears, I made tracks for the pavilion. All the way I went I could not realize that I was out. My only sensation was the not unpleasing one of walking swiftly. Dead silence reigned as I marched in head down, thinking of nothing in particular. But the vision of the umpire’s upthrown hand seemed to be painted on my retina. The Ancient was in the dressing-room brandishing his bat. “Rough luck, old man!” he said. Thereupon he went out to take my vacant place at the wicket, while I sat down, slowly mopped my wet face, rinsed my parched mouth, and then proceeded to take my pads off in the dullest, most apathetic manner. CHAPTER VI Of a Young Person in Brown Holland I WAS still seated, striving to break to myself the news that I really must be out, and that my brave dreams were as dust, when the man I least desired to see--the General Nuisance--appeared with his condolence. He placed a shilling in my hand with an air of indescribable tenderness. “What’s this for?” I said. “For your cricket outfit,” said he. “I knew that you’d wish to dispose of it at once by private treaty, as you’ll never touch a bat again if you live to be a hundred. A shilling for the lot, and a pretty liberal offer.” When I slowly raised my face and looked at the General Nuisance, there was that within it which caused him to somewhat hurriedly remember that he had “got to see a man about a dog,” and he, therefore, could not possibly stay just then to discuss the details. The utterly abandoned appear to enjoy a charmed existence. It was the same at the wicket. I’ve seen the General Nuisance dropped more times in one afternoon than men who have had their moral natures properly developed are in the course of a season.