One day he drove down a roystering party of cricketers to play a match in the country. When the game began it was discovered that the visiting team was a man short. The captain, hard put to it to find a substitute, cast his eye upon the chauffeur, and straightway pressed him, a not unwilling victim, into the service. In black leather breeches and shirt-sleeves Pip fielded in the sun, "revolving many memories," as Tennyson says; and towards the end of the match, when runs were coming somewhat too freely and all the bowlers had been tried in vain, was given the ball; whereupon, throwing caution to the winds, he disposed of five wickets in exactly three overs. Fortunately the team had lunched generously, as teams that come down from the city for a day's sport not infrequently do, so the enthusiasm which Pip's feat evoked was too alcoholic to be discriminating.
One more experience Pip had, and as it marked the closing stages of his apprenticeship to manhood, and also introduced him to a character whose existence was foreshadowed in the second chapter of this book, it shall be set down at length.
CHAPTER IX
THE PRINCIPAL BOY: AN INTERLUDE
I
Captain Lottingar opened the door of the library and roared up the staircase—
"Lottie!"
Miss Lottie Lottingar came down. She was an exceedingly handsome young person,—what is usually known as "a fine figure of a woman,"—but there was nothing of the squire's daughter about her, as there should be about a youthful châtelaine who comes tripping down the shallow oak stairs of a great Elizabethan country house. There is usually something breezy, healthy, and eminently English about such a girl. Lottie, although her colour was good and her costume countrified enough, smacked of the town. She was undeniably attractive, but in her present surroundings she somehow suggested a bottle of champagne at a school-treat. She would have made an admirable "Principal Boy" in a pantomime. As a matter of fact, she had been one.
Her father led the way into the library, and having shut the door, lit a cigarette and leaned against the carved mantelpiece. Lottie sat on a table and swung her legs.