“No; I tell you it never happened.”
“But tell us about Spofforth,” cried Laddie. Dimples, with his imaginative mind, usually wandered, while the elder came eagerly back to the point. “Was he very fast?”
“He could be very fast. I have heard cricketers who had played against him say that his yorker—that is a ball which is just short of a full pitch—was the fastest ball in England. I have myself seen his long arm swing round and the wicket go down before ever the batsman had time to ground his bat.”
“Oo!” from both beds.
“He was a tall, thin man, and they called him the Fiend. That means the Devil, you know.”
“And was he the Devil?”
“No, Dimples, no. They called him that because he did such wonderful things with the ball.”
“Can the Devil do wonderful things with a ball?”
Daddy felt that he was propagating devil-worship and hastened to get to safer ground.