My second ball was a colourable imitation of my first, only this time it was wide to leg. To long-leg Mr. Benyon sent it flying.
"Put down Tom Benyon another six!" he cried. "I do like your bowling, mister. I've got another ball which you can have."
He produced a second ball from the same pocket from which the first had come. I could scarcely believe my eyes. But I was discovering, with Horatio, that there were more things in heaven and earth than had been contained in my philosophy. Since Mr. Benyon professed such affection for the style of bowling which I favoured, I sent him down another sample. This time it was fairly straight--by which I mean that it would not have pitched more than a yard from the wickets if Mr. Benyon had allowed it to pitch, which he didn't. He treated it as he had done the first--he drove it, with terrific force, right above my head.
"Never mind about the ball," he said. "I've got another in my pocket."
He had--the third. And in the same pocket from which the other two had come.
My fourth ball he treated to a swipe to square-leg. He seemed to have a partiality for swiping. Quite unnecessarily he allowed that this was so.
"I do like a ball which I can get a smack at," he remarked as he produced a fourth ball from the same pocket of his tightly-fitting trousers which had contained the other three. "A swipe does warm me so. Your kind of bowling, mister, 's just the thing."
It was kind of him to say so; though, to my thinking, his remark did not convey a compliment. When he sent my fifth ball out of sight I wished that his love for swiping had been less, or my bowling of another kind. The sixth, however, which he also produced from the same wondrous store contained in his breeches pocket, he contented himself with what he called "snicking."
"That's what I call a pretty snick," he said.
The "snick" in question was a tremendous drive to deep mid-off. It was stopped, quite involuntarily, by Mr. Hawthorn and Mr. Hedges. So far as I could see, it stunned the pair of them. Neither of them made the slightest attempt to return the ball.