“Well, that’s your fault. Hullo, there’s Pritchard out!”
Pritchard came up to them, dangling his glove in his hand, with much to say.
“It’s a beastly light,” he began, as soon as he was up to them. “I played the ball all right, but I simply couldn’t see it. Besides, it shot.”
“Well, it was just the other way with me,” remarked Tom. “I saw the ball all right, but I couldn’t play it, and it didn’t shoot.”
“Oh, you tried to slog your first ball,” said he, walking away.
Tom and Markham sat down under the chestnut-tree and drank their tea.
“Shall I come to you as soon as term is over?” asked Markham. “The last day of term is Saturday week, you know.”
“Hang it! so it is. Yes, come at once; it will be the twenty-ninth, won’t it? Thirty days hath—no there are thirty-one. Tuesday will be the first. You may come and carry my cartridges if you won’t shoot.”
“That will be charming. I can’t see what the fun of hitting little brown birds is.”
“Oh, well, you may always miss! But if you come to that, what’s the fun of hitting a little red cricket-ball?”