“Oh, that’s all nonsense!” Sidney said, decisively.
Besides being our best bat, he was the captain of the Little Peddlington Cricket Club, which, as it was far into the month of August, had got somewhat dispersed through some of the team having gone off on those cheap excursions to London, to the Continent, and elsewhere, that are rife at most of the seaside places on the south coast during the season. But now that the great travelling team of the “Piccadilly Inimitables” purposed paying a passing visit to our rural shades, it of course behoved the Little Peddlington Cricket Club to challenge the celebrated amateurs to a match, albeit we were so woefully weak from the absence of many of our best members, or else be for ever disgraced amongst the patrons of the noble game.
It was this very point we were debating now, our captain having collected the remnants of the club together in solemn caucus, to deliberate on the situation and see what was to be done.
“I don’t see why we shouldn’t challenge the Inimitables,” he went on. “The worst that can happen to us is to get licked; but we might make a good fight for it, and if vanquished we should not be covered with dishonour. There are five of us here of the first eleven to form a nucleus with: Charley Bates—whom I mention first, not by reason of his superior skill with the willow,” the captain slily put in, “as that is known to all of us, but on account of his being the oldest member of the Little Peddlington Cricket Club present, with the exception of myself—Jack Limpet, who is a very good all-round player if he didn’t brag quite so much,”—this was one at me—“Tom Atkins, John Hardy, and last, though by no means least, my worthy self. Thus we’ve five good men and true, whom we have tried already in many a fray, to rely on; and I daresay we can pick out two or three likely youngsters from the juniors, while some of those new fellows amongst the visitors that came down last week would lend us a hand. There were three of them especially that I noticed yesterday practising, whom I should certainly like to have in the eleven if I could get them to join us.”
“They’d be glad enough if you’d ask them,” grumbled Charley Bates, who always seemed to prefer looking at the disagreeable side of things; “but I don’t think much of their play. And as for the juveniles, there isn’t one worth his salt.”
“Yes, there is,” said John Hardy, who seldom spoke; but when he did open his mouth, generally did so to the purpose. “That young fellow James Black is first-class both at batting and bowling. I’ve watched him many a time. He ought to have been in the eleven long ago.”
“Do you think so?” said Sidney inquiringly. “I’m afraid I’ve overlooked him. I’ll make a note of his name, even if we don’t have him with us to play against the Inimitables.”
Without much further demur, Sidney Grant proceeded to settle that he and John Hardy should form themselves into a deputation and wait upon the committee of the visitors’ cricket club, requesting them to furnish the assistance of the three members whom our captain had specified, to the Little Peddlington Eleven, which would be also duly recruited from the ranks of its junior team, not forgetting young James Black, in order to enable them to challenge the Piccadilly Inimitables, and try to stop their triumphal progress round the south coast.
Charley Bates objected, naturally, as might have been imagined from the position he took at first. He objected not only to the visitors being asked to join our scratch team and represent the Little Peddlingtonians, but also specially—just because John Hardy mentioned his name, and for no other earthly reason—to the fact of young Black’s being selected from the junior eleven. He was over-ruled, however, on both points, much to his chagrin, as he was in the habit generally of getting his own way by bullying the rest, and he left the meeting in the greatest disgust, saying that he wouldn’t play, and thus “make himself a party to the disgrace that was looming over the club,” in their defeat by the Inimitables, which he confidently expected.
“He’s too fond of figuring in public to care to take a back seat when we are all in it, and bite off his nose to spite his face!” said Tom Atkins when he went away from us in his dudgeon, shaking off the dust from his cricketing shoes, so to speak, in testimony against us. “Master Charley will come round and join us when he sees we are in for the match, you bet!”