“Lord, yes!” groaned those great men.
“S’pose I’ve got to have it, then,” said the Harrow captain humbly.
From this it should be seen that county cricket is not quite all beer and skittles. It has its drawbacks.
The enthusiasm had scarcely had time to die when a solitary figure, in a grey flannel suit, came through the laurel bushes and over the lawn to the tumultuous tea-table. It was the Optimist.
“Delighted to see you, my boy,” said the Rector. “Sit down, and get at those strawberries.”
“One lump or two, Cheery?” said the brisk Grace. “And Tommy’s playing against Kent on Monday. Isn’t it scrumptious! Toddles, send the cream along, will you when you’ve taken your blazer out of it? But isn’t it prime about Tommy?”
“Your fist, old man!” demanded the Optimist. He wrung T. S. M.’s hand in such a way that it was lucky it was not his bowling arm.
The Optimist, best of good fellows as he was, might have sought for years to find the highway into Miss Grace’s heart, and yet not have so nearly found it as he did just then. For his behaviour clearly said, that if he was not in his own person a great cricketer, none the less he had a true feeling for the game.
As the champion county had made a moderate score, and Gloucestershire felt that they therefore could afford to be generous, Brightside was allowed to bat for Middlesex. Unfortunately, his efforts in the batting line were of very little service to his side. When the poor chap took his guard, and then looked up and saw Miss Grace preparing to deliver, he couldn’t have been in a greater funk had she been Spofforth himself. One ball transacted his business. It had the paternal curl, and also “did a bit” as well.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said the tender-hearted bowler, as the poor Optimist’s wicket shed a silent bail; “but it was a good ’un, wasn’t it? The Old Man’s analysis is three wickets for fourteen. Not so dusty, is it, for a veteran?”