"I hope you are under no delusion as to my powers, Mr. Sapsworth. I never was a first-rate cricketer, and, as I have already told you, it is more than fifteen years since I handled a bat."
"If you'll excuse my saying so, sir, I've generally noticed that them who doesn't say much does a deal."
That was one way of looking at it, no doubt; but if I did a deal, I could only say that it would be a pleasant surprise to me.
"And our opponents--what sort of a team are they?"
Mr. Sapsworth turned up his nose--not metaphorically, but as a matter of fact.
"If we're bad," he said, "they're wuss. There's only one thing I've ever seen those Latchmere blokes much good at, and that is cheating. You'll have to keep a sharp eye on them, or they'll have all our chaps out when they ain't; and they won't go out themselves, not even when you've bowled their three stumps down all of a row."
"Surely," I suggested, "those sort of questions are for the umpires to decide."
"Umpires!" Up went Mr. Sapworth's nose again. "They bring their own umpire, and he's got his own ideas of umpiring, he has. But we've got our own umpire as well as them."
I said nothing; but Mr. Sapsworth's words conveyed to my mind pleasant impressions of the strict rigour of the game.
When we arrived there was a goodly gathering already assembled in Mr. Stubbs's field. A tent was erected; in and about it was a nondescript collection of men and boys; some forty or fifty others, availing themselves of the opportunity afforded them for a little practice, were actually disporting themselves on the pitch on which we were presently to play. I consoled myself with the reflection that the worse the ground was the more my bowling would tell.