“Dimsdale, don’t you be bluffed,” said Charlie. “She’s a regular Arthur Roberts at the game of bluff. She knows as well as anybody that Biffin’s umpiring is worth about five hundred runs a year to her. The darned impudent decisions I’ve seen that bounder Biffin give are something cruel. If he’s given her in once, he’s given her in six times when she’s been stumped yards out of her ground, simply on account of the tip of the wicket-keeper’s nose being in front of the wicket. Pretty barefaced to come it once, but six times is what I should call immoral.”
“Shows his knowledge o’ the game,” said Biffin’s defender, “and his attention to the fine points of it, too. There’s lots of umpires ’ud not have noticed that, and I should have had to have gone out.”
“They’d not, that’s a cert.,” said Charlie; “and that you would have had to have gone out is a dead cert.”
“I s’pose, Charlie,” said Grace, “that the tip o’ the wicket-keeper’s nose is a part of his person, isn’t it? And Rule 42 says——”
“Here, no more cucumbers!” cried T. S. M. hastily.
“Dimsdale, don’t you budge,” said Carteret. “If you consent to Biffin, you’ll be shamefully rooked.”
“What’s Dimmy got to do with it?” said Grace. “Is Dimmy the M.C.C., or what? If I say Biffin’s going to stand, Biffin will stand, and don’t you think he won’t; ’cause if you do, you’ll be in error.”
“Go it, Lord Harris!” said Toddles. “Just hear Harris! Oh, you autocratic person! Talk about George, why, you’re worse than a colonel of militia!”
The case was being conducted with great fervour by both sides. There was quite a formidable array of counsel for the prosecution. Indeed, Grace’s defence of the indefensible Biffin had for once caused her to stand absolutely alone. She was no whit abashed, though. Nor did she descend to mere argument. She was thoroughly satisfied with her own opinion, and was prepared to enforce it in the teeth of male criticism of the most destructive kind.
“Biffin’s an unmitigated ruffian,” said Archie. “And if I can help it, he’ll never stand again.”