When I slowly raised my face and looked at the General Nuisance, there was that within it which caused him to somewhat hurriedly remember that he had “got to see a man about a dog,” and he, therefore, could not possibly stay just then to discuss the details. The utterly abandoned appear to enjoy a charmed existence. It was the same at the wicket. I’ve seen the General Nuisance dropped more times in one afternoon than men who have had their moral natures properly developed are in the course of a season.
Having convinced myself at last that I was actually out, I got up and donned my blazer with an assumption of sad-eyed resignation. A case of l.b.w. offers no scope for original and forcible combinations of phrase; it has exhausted them quite a long time ago. Thus I filled a pipe, and began pathetically to smoke. If it were not that the gods gave tobacco to us to assuage our miseries, it is certain that common humanity would insist on a lethal chamber being attached to the pavilion of every cricket-ground, whereby poor mortals placed as I was now might not continue in their sufferings.
I eventually went out and sat down with as much dignity as I could assume on the pavilion front. There, staring me in the face, was the grim legend, 10-1-7. Presently I found the courage to look at the game. But it reminded me too acutely of the horrid void left gaping in my young ambition. How I could see the ball, and how absurdly simple did the bowling look! It always does when you’ve been in and got out for a few. If you’ve been in and made a score, it is usual to advise your successors to play a watchful game, as the bowling is by no means so easy as it seems. Why didn’t the Ancient cut that ball for four, instead of pecking at it? Why didn’t the Captain jump into those ridiculous donkey-drops and hit ’em to the moon, instead of playing back and contenting himself with singles? It was this pottering, afternoon-tea kind of cricket that was ruining the game.
The team agreed that they had never seen me shape so well. But what solace is it to be told this when one is out for seven? Here was I fitness incarnate, timing and seeing the ball to a hair, condemned to sit hours on the hard seat of that pavilion, eating my heart out with inactivity, while others got ’em. Verily cricket is a cheerful pastime! The perfect wicket, the glorious day, the appreciative crowd, the chance of fame, and then l.b.w. 7.
“Of course, the ball did a lot,” said the Pessimist. “’Wouldn’t have hit the wicket by a mile. Your leg couldn’t possibly have been in front, and, of course in your humble opinion the blithering umpire is either drunk or delirious.”
“Grimston,” said the Humourist, “you appear to suffer from a deficient sympathy. It is very unkind of you to make remarks of this sort, when you can see that the poor fellow is in pain. It is not humour and it is not humanity.”
There was no alternative but to continue smoking with that placid indifference that alone can cope with the vulgar, common wit that is levelled at ourselves.
“Look at Brightside, lucky brute!” said the Secretary, “jawing on the coach there with Miss Grace. Keeps her all to himself, the selfish beggar! instead of coming down and introducing us.”
The Optimist appeared to be having a particularly happy time. He was seated beside Miss Grace on the box-seat, talking in the most animated manner, whilst she put down the runs in the Hickory score-book, which she held on her knee. It is impossible to assess the exact amount of envy he provoked in the susceptible bosoms of his side seated on the pavilion front.
We were still discussing the good fortune of the Optimist, and watching him pursue it, when he climbed down from his conspicuous position and came along towards eight of his flannel-clad colleagues, who had a terrible quantity of inflammable material in their manly interiors.