“You played Charlie like a book,” she said. “Met him before?”
“Oh, no,” I said briskly.
“Then you batted real well,” she said. “For Charlie’s the best bowler in England now that Tom Richardson’s stale. He’s top of the averages this week. One hundred and fifty-five wickets for 13·83, and he’s certain to get another fifty before the season’s done. At Lord’s he fairly had Oxford on toast; they were in a frightful funk.”
“Yes, yes,” I groaned; feebly adding to cover my distress, “what one would call the bluest of the blue, Miss Trentham.”
Miss Trentham transfixed me with a look of whimsical enquiry. Then she said quickly: “Oh, I’m so sorry I didn’t notice your cap. Why weren’t you there to stop the rot? And why didn’t you get your blue when you were up? They only gave you a show in the Freshers’.”
“Nothing near good enough,” I said humbly. But how the deuce did she know that I’d only had a show in the Freshers’? I had yet to learn that her full family title was Grace, the Walking Wisden, because she was so well grounded in that indispensable work that she could repeat even its advertisements by heart.
“’Would be now, Grace, don’t you think?” said the friendly Optimist.
“Ra-ther. His style’s O. K. He watches the ball, too.”
“But it’s such a beautiful wicket,” said I. “You can play forward at anything.”
“It is a good wicket,” she said, “but I could see you watching Charlie all the way. And that’s where ’Varsity bats generally fail, don’t you know. Seen dozens of ’em, blues too, and wonderful school reputations, and all that, regular ‘lions on lawns.’ Put on ’em a Burroughes and Watts’, and they’ll play like the Badminton. But just let the wicket begin to ‘talk’ a bit, then it’s another story. Let me see, were you not in the Winchester eleven?”