Martin triumphantly kept his side of the agreement. The ordinary house pitches were rough and ready, the ordinary house player a slogger. Martin's ordinary ball was well pitched up and apparently simple. But he had had his eye on two or three small boys in the junior team who, though poor bats, could run like hares in 'the country' and hold on to anything they touched. These he translated to the first, to the vast indignation of several clumsy hitters who were moved down in their stead. The policy was a success. Martin used to go on first before the other side were set and occasionally got a victim in the slips or enticed a steady man in front of his wicket. Then he made way for orthodox 'fast rights,' but after the fall of five or six wickets he would polish off the tail with atrocious slow stuff. His small boys were scattered far away and interfered considerably with an adjacent game: they had plenty to do and were given an ice for every catch they held. Martin soon found it an expensive amusement and became extremely unpopular with the tenants of the neighbouring pitch. He never sulked if he were 'knocked off,' an unusual trait in a house captain and a cause of popularity with his team. And the fielders knew that he only pretended to mind when catches were dropped: Martin was incapable of being ruffled by a mere game. As a result the eleven played keenly and with efficiency. Though Berney's had only one man, Rayner, in the school eleven they succeeded in reaching the final of the Cock House matches. They were to play, just before the end of term, their old enemy, Randall's. Martin now became thoroughly engrossed in cricket. He neglected to work for one or two school prizes, but he knew that he could get a leaving scholarship without difficulty. Thus he became a more prominent figure in the house and was, on the whole, much happier than in the days of reading and thinking. He abandoned Wells the social theorist for Wells the fantastic romancer and combined _Wisden's Almanac_ with Arnold Bennett for his literature in prep-time. He knew now that he couldn't bowl googlies at all: on the house pitches it depended on the lie of the land which way the ball broke. But he kept up the fraud for his own amusement, and continued to take the wickets to which his confidence entitled him.