“Oh no, not a bit,” said I; “at least, that’s what everybody says. No one ever thinks anything of Oldknow’s batting, but if there’s runs to be got Oldknow always considers it his duty to get ’em. For the last ten years his average for Little Clumpton has panned out at forty-six, and since he gets steadily better as his hair gets whiter, by the middle of next century he will have worked it up to something over sixty. He’ll still be going in first wicket down and coming out last but one. He won’t go in first, a place for which Nature certainly designed him, as he abhors ostentation of any kind. That is why he so carefully refrains from making strokes that are at all likely to appeal to the eye of the multitude. There, he’s popped one under his leg for another two.”
“Isn’t it perfectly atrocious?” said Miss Grace indignantly. “Why does he do it?”
“To bring his score up to thirty-five,” said the Optimist, “without the crowd suspecting that he’s got so many. If they were to applaud him, they’d put him off his game.”
“I wish they would, then,” said Miss Grace cruelly. “Why don’t somebody bowl him? the little horror! There, did you see him snick that one away for another single? That makes him thirty-six. It’s positively wicked of him. I wonder how a silly point would affect him?”
“Every low dodge of that kind has been tried and found wanting years ago,” said the Optimist.
Miss Grace grew pensive for a moment.
“I have it!” she cried. “I’ll tell Charlie, if he’s still in at lunch, to go on again at the top end, and pitch short and bump ’em. If Charlie hit him over the heart about four times, that might give him pause, don’t you think?”
“I doubt it,” said I; “unless Charlie happens to be a Maxim gun.”
CHAPTER VIII
A Cricket Lunch
WHEN the bell rang for luncheon at half-past one, the score-sheet was pretty reading:—