“Well, I wish you would keep them for school-matches,” said Humphreys. “And second innings you had me with a roaring full-pitch, ninety-five miles an hour. I thought it was only eighty-five, and so I missed it by ten miles.”
David laughed.
“Sorry. It was rather a fast one,” he said. “I thought it had got you in the tummy. Jolly glad it was only your wicket.”
“So’m I,” remarked Humphreys. “Come and bathe.”
Since then, every day had added to the pace of the ground, and this Sunday afternoon, as David strolled down with Bags, he looked at the turf with extreme content.
“Just my luck all over,” he said, “that it should be getting into the state that suits me best for Old Boys’ match. Lord, what a pity I said that! I shan’t be able to send down a decent ball now. But I should love to bowl Frank. Bags, I do think about cricket so tremendously in the summer half. I lie awake making plans.”
He took a short run and brought his arm over his shoulder in a complicated fashion.
“Why shouldn’t I bring my arm up overhand like that,” he said, “and turn my wrist over underhand? You might say that the ball would simply fly up gently in the air and fall at my feet. But something might be done with it. You can usually do something with anything if you give your mind to it.”
“Like you with Jev,” remarked Bags.