Still steadily eyeing the man, Jim pointed to the mattress, and slowly, doubtfully, the major crept towards it and lay down. In two minutes he was slumbering like a child.
Jim made sure that the major was fast asleep before he softly approached the door. Hughes let him out and shot the bolt back into its socket with all possible speed.
"The Doctor himself couldn't have done it better, sir," said the head attendant, with heartfelt admiration. "Will you come and see the cricket now, sir?" he added.
The milder of the asylum's inmates were trying conclusions with bat and ball in an adjoining field. Jim, on arriving at the scene of play, displaced one of the attendants who was acting as wicket-keeper, and took up his position behind the sticks.
The ball came swiftly, and the batsman--a tall, broad-shouldered, ill-tempered-looking fellow--snicked it into Jim's ready hands.
"How's that?" roared the Long 'Un; but the attendant umpiring at the other end, being a diplomat, gave it as "Not out."
As Jim trundled the ball back to the bowler, the big batsman turned to him and testily observed, "Please don't ask a question of that sort again. I don't like it."
"My dear man," said Mortimer, assuming that he was addressing one of the most reasonable inmates of the place, "if I catch you at the wicket, you're out. That's only fair."
But the batsman merely glared at him sulkily.
The next ball was a still more palpable catch at the wicket, and was securely held.