“No. I’m for Joan—and Peter.”
“But that sort of trick play——”
“No. The way to play a game is to get all over the game and to be equal to anything in it. If there is a stroke or anything that spoils the game it ought to be barred by the rules. Apart from that, a game ought to be worked out to its last possibility. Things oughtn’t to be barred in the interests of a few conventional swipes. This cutting down of a game to just a few types of stroke——”
Peter looked apprehensive.
“It’s laziness,” said Oswald.
Troop was too puzzled to be offended. “But you have to work tremendously hard, sir, at the proper game.”
“Not mentally,” said Oswald. “There’s too much good form in all our games. It’s just a way of cutting down a game to a formality.”
“But, for instance, sir, would you bowl grounders at cricket?”
“If I thought the batsman had been too lazy to learn what to do with them. Why not?”
“If you look at it like that, sir!” said Troop and had no more to say. But he went away marvelling. Oswald was a V.C. Yet he looked at games like—like an American, he played to win; it was enough to perplex any one....