Mr. Sapsworth intervened.
"What's that?" he cried. "We've got Hedges!"
He brought Mr. Hedges forward. I could not but feel that, to say the least of it, Mr. Hedges balanced Mr. Sprouts. If Mr. Hedges could run more than a dozen yards without pausing to take breath, I was almost ready to express my willingness to eat my hat.
"But we've only got ten men," persisted Mr. Barker. "You'll only have to have ten. If you think we're going to play against your eleven we won't play you at all, so that's all about it."
There was a prospect of unpleasantness even before the match began. It seemed that one of us would have to retire, in satisfaction of Mr. Barker's rather unjustifiable demand. I was about to retire myself--for I instinctively felt that, as a captain, I was no match for Mr. Barker--when a rather curious incident occurred.
On a sudden a newcomer appeared upon the scene. I say on a sudden, for no one had noticed his approach, and yet, all at once, there he was, standing between the Latchmere captain and myself. To me at any rate his presence was so unexpected, and, indeed, so startling, that I stared. He seemed to have come out of space. He was a big, burly fellow, with smooth cheeks, round face, bullet-shaped head, and sleepy-looking black eyes.
"Let me play for you?" he said.
For a moment Mr. Barker stared at the stranger in surprise, in common with the rest of us. Then he jumped at the offer.
"Let you! rather!" He thrust out his hand and caught the stranger's palm in his. But no sooner had he got it firmly gripped than he dropped it with an exclamation: "Why, what's the matter with you? Ain't you well? Your hand's as cold as a frozen corpse."
I went a little aside with Mr. Sapsworth.