“Great pity,” she said reflectively. “I should rather have liked you to stay a bit; you’d have been worth looking at. And I’ve just got my doubts about that decision. L B W to left arm round _is_ always a bit fishy, isn’t it? Not, you know, that I’m at all sorry that you’re out. I’m Hickory, of course, and all that, although I _do_ like to see a man play the game. You see, I’m sorry and I’m not sorry. Oh, hang it! I can’t explain it!” Both the Optimist and I had the ill manners to smile with some breadth. But the solecism was worth committing, if only for the sake of observing the gleam of envy that ran along the row of cricketers on the pavilion front. Weren’t we enjoying ourselves! And they could have been so much farther from the mark. I might never have been leg before in my life. “’Mustn’t get over-confident, you know, if you’re going to make a first-rater,” Miss Grace said authoritatively; “great mistake. But I believe you were not so _very_ confident when you first went in. In fact, I thought you were just--just a wee bit nervous. I wouldn’t have minded betting a shilling that Charlie did you first over. Weren’t you a bit nervous?” “Oh dear, no,” I said, resenting the imputation with great robustness. “I’m never nervous.” She was evidently a young person of the most horrible penetration. What could have put these ideas into her mind? “Don’t you think,” she said suddenly, “that my young brother Tom would get on better if he took to playing marbles? His bowling is dreadfully awful, isn’t it?” “Of course it’s not so good as your brother Charlie’s,” I said diplomatically. “Thank you,” she said sardonically; “I’ll write that down. But say, yes; I _do_ want you to say, yes.” “Why?” “Well, you see, I maintain in the face of all my people that it is absolute rubbish. They all think he’s rather good for a boy. They say at Harrow that he’s going to make another Dowson. But if that’s so, it don’t take much to make a Dowson, does it? Do, Mr. Dimsdale, please say that you think it’s awful rot. It is, you know, really. And the amount of side that boy’s got on is something extraordinary. He might be the Old Man himself. Thinks himself no end of a swell ’cause he’s diddled a few schoolboys with his donkey-drops. Never saw such a length in my life. Why don’t George shunt him and give Billington a try?” Even as she spoke the captain, who was now thoroughly set, was seen to gather himself for a great effort. At last he ventured to have a go at this severely criticised slow bowler. Up and up went the ball a remarkable height, and, to the horror of the Optimist and myself, we saw that it must drop into the hands of the little parson just below us on the boundary. We both held our breaths in a spasm of suspense, but Miss Grace seemed as happy as possible.