The operation was performed successfully that evening, and Stott’s career was closed.
VII
I have already referred to the obsession which dominated Stott after his accident, and I must now deal with that overweening anxiety of his to teach his method to another man.
I did not see Stott again till August, and then I had a long talk with him on the Ailesworth County Ground, as together we watched the progress of Hampdenshire’s defeat by Lancashire.
“Oh! I can’t learn him nothing,” he broke out, as Flower was hit to the four corners of the ground, “’alf vollies and long ’ops and then a full pitch—’e’s a disgrace.”
“They’ve knocked him off his length,” I protested. “On wicket like this....”
Stott shook his head. “I’ve been trying to learn ’im,” he said, “but he can’t never learn. ’E’s got ’abits what you can’t break ’im of.”
“I suppose it is difficult,” I said vaguely.
“Same with me,” went on Stott, “I’ve been trying to learn myself to bowl without my finger”—he held up his mutilated hand—“or left-’anded; but I can’t. If I’d started that way.... No! I’m always feeling for that finger as is gone. A second-class bowler I might be in time, not better nor that.”