"Now you're getting at me, aren't you?" he said.
"Of course I am. Haven't you been trying to get at me?"
"Do you think you're going to score?" he asked.
"I shouldn't wonder," I told him; "because you didn't encourage those panicky fellow-batsmen of yours to talk about their nerves, did you? On the contrary, you swaggered a bit yourself, and told 'em that the bowling was poor stuff. You didn't even tell 'em to forget that growing excavation behind their belt-buckles. You were subtler. You took it for granted that they hadn't got one. You surrounded 'em with the proper atmosphere. You were more than half a nerve specialist already—the better half. You infected them with your own health. But what are you proposing to do now?"
The journalist in him died hard.
"Then you think there is a rot?" he asked.
"I didn't say so."
He put his pipe in his pocket, and picked up his hat and gloves.
"After all," he smiled, "you've only been preaching the old doctrine of responsibility, you know. And the modern journalist is a detached person." But I shook my head.
I repeat that he was a nice boy, and had borne my little pi-jaw with admirable fortitude.