“No,” replied Mercer, as we went on. “I shall never deal with him again. If I want a bird or anything, I shall ask Bob Hopley. He’s a man, he is. If you give him anything, he says, ‘Thank-ye,’ and if you don’t, he never seems to mind. He knows boys haven’t always got any money. I wish Magglin would go right away.”
The conversation turned then upon the coming cricket match; after which we dropped in upon Lomax, and talked to him about boxing, and I pleased him very much by telling him how satisfied my uncle had been at the way I had learned to ride a horse; when, with his eyes twinkling, the old soldier took a letter from his chimney-piece, and opened it to show me my uncle’s words, thanking him for the way he, an old soldier, had trained the son of a soldier, and enclosing a five-pound note.
“For a rainy day, Master Burr,” he said. “I’ve clapped that in the bank.”
Chapter Twenty Two.
If there was any one thing I dearly loved, it was a good game—a regular well-fought struggle—at cricket. Oddly enough, I used to like to be on the losing side, with the eleven who were so far behind that their fight was becoming desperate, and every effort had to be made to steal a run here and another there, slowly building up the score, with the excitement gradually increasing, and the weaker side growing stronger and more hopeful hour by hour, till, perhaps, by the clever batting of one boy, who has got well to work, and who, full of confidence, sets at defiance the best efforts in every change of bowler, the score is lifted right up to the winning-point, and he comes back to the tent with the bat over his shoulder, amidst the cheers of all the lookers-on.
I suppose I got on well with my education at Doctor Browne’s. I know I got on well at cricket, for whenever a match was made up for some holiday, I was in so much request that both sides were eager to have me.
The Doctor had promised us a holiday to play the boys of a school at Hastings. They were to come over on an omnibus, and a tent was to be set up in our field, where, after the game, a high tea was to be provided for the visitors before they returned to Hastings in the evening.
I need hardly say that the day was looked forward to with the greatest eagerness, and that plans were made to give our visitors a thorough good thrashing.