"I should love to. I know all the things to say."
She got up excitedly.
"Come along then. I've got the rippingest bat. But you must promise not to bowl too fast."
I had said that I knew all the things to say, but as a matter of fact there is only one thing to say: "You should have come out to 'er, sir." (Or, I suppose, in Miss Middleton's case, "You should have come out to him, madam.") It's a silly remark to make, because it is just what one is always doing. At school I could come out to anything that was straight and not too high; the difficulty lay in staying in. Nobody ever told me how to do that.
Miss Middleton led the way to a walled-in tennis lawn, which lay next to the broccoli tops and things, and was kept away from it by only six feet of brick. If it had simply been a question of cabbage I should have said nothing, but there would be grapes there too.
"I know," said Miss Middleton. "But we must play against a wall. Don't bowl too much to leg."
I hadn't bowled since October the Fourth. The first post-October ball was a trifle over-pitched, and a little too much to the right. All the same I was just saying, "You should have come out to that one," when there was a crash from the direction of long-on.
"By Jove, I didn't know you were so good. Was that the grapes?"
"How awful! Yes. It simply seemed to fly off the bat. I did ask you not to bowl there, didn't I?"
She looked so penitent that I had to comfort her.