CHAPTER IV
PIP FINDS HIS VOCATION
Mr. Hanbury made no comment, but requested Pip to bowl again. "A good fast one," he said.
Pip, with the most natural air in the world, obeyed orders. This time he bowled a yorker, somewhere in the direction of the off-stump. Mr. Hanbury did not trouble to play it, but chopped his bat down into the block-hole to stop it. The ball, however, chiefly owing to the fact that it curled some inches in the air, missed his bat and bowled him off his pads.
"One more," said Ham.
Pip, divided between elation at bowling a master and apprehension as to the consequences thereof, delivered his fourth ball—a full pitch to the off this time. Bad ball as it was, the curl in the air was most apparent; but Ham, who took the measure of most bowling after the third ball, stepped across, and, playing apparently about three inches inside it, caught it fairly and sent it flying.
"That will do, thanks," he said. "Now, run off to tea, but drop into my study after prayers for a minute."
Pip made his appearance very promptly after prayers.
Mr. Hanbury, who was smoking and correcting exercises, nodded to a chair, and after a few minutes' silence, broken by sundry grunts and the thud of a merciless blue pencil, put down his work and addressed Pip.