“Dimsdale,” said the little curate in a low but excruciatingly friendly tone, “you stick to that pick-up and return, and you’ve got the least little bit of a hundredth part of a look in. Keep as clean and keen as that, and it’s just on the cards that you may be adopted as a candidate.”
“Candidate?” said I.
“There was a man named Comfort came over here to lunch,” said the little curate.
This sinister reference afflicted me with an overpowering disinclination to pursue the subject farther.
Before Gloucestershire began their innings there was an interval for tea. There is no doubt that this question of afternoon tea has become quite a vexed one with the counties, and as Elphinstone—or was it Carteret?—observed, there are counties in existence who resolutely refuse to countenance the innovation. But Gloucestershire was never one of these. Indeed, I’ve heard it said that when Gloucestershire are fielding, though the reason is inexplicable of course, there is more time consumed over the cup that cheers than on any other occasion. Therefore in this instance it was quite an expected thing that there should be a pretty considerable interval for tea, and that Gloucester’s captain should lead the way to a fair white table, seductively spread in the shade of the beeches and the chestnuts in the coolest corner of the garden. The Rectory grounds were of no remarkable extent, but harboured a charming wilderness with two lawns therein beautifully turfed and mown and rolled for cricket only, to break the monotony of shrubs, trees, and flowers, growing at their own sweet will. If this was the favoured spot in which this famous family had been reared, and this the air they breathed, small wonder that they played cricket as naturally as Keats wrote poetry. They couldn’t help it. My enthusiasm demanded an outlet, and I told Miss Grace that hers was the most delightful place I’d ever seen.
“Yes, isn’t it just stunning!” she cried, while her glowing look announced that her chiefest pleasure was to sing its praises. “Every morning when I look out of my window and hear the birds kicking up a jolly noise in the ivy, and see the dew scooting off the wicket, it seems to come to me all at once, as if I’d never thought of it before, that I live at just the primest place that ever was.”
“Isn’t it pretty old?” I said.
“Oh, yes,” said she. “Been in our family——”
“Since Noah,” T. S. M. rudely interposed.
“Now then,” said Toddles, “don’t Harrow your sister’s feelings.”