Mr. Punch looked up, and perceived before him a stalwart six-footer in flannels, broad-belted at the equator, and wearing broad-brim'd silken stove-pipe.
"Alfred Mynn, quoting 'the Old Buffer,' or I'm a Dutchman," said the omniscient and ever-ready one.
"'And, whatever fame and glory these and other bats may win,
Still the monarch of hard hitters, to my mind, was Alfred Mynn;
With his tall and stately presence, with his nobly-moulded form,
His broad hand was ever open, his brave heart was ever warm'—
as Prowse sang pleasantly."
The Kentish Titan blushed—if Shades can with modesty suffuse. "You know everything, of course, Mr. Punch," said he; "and therefore you know that the object of my visit is not to have my praises sung even by you or the Poet Prowse, but to back up that National Testimonial to the Cricketer of the century—and the 'centuries'—of which I'm glad to hear whispers in the Elysian Fields, where—alas!—we do not pitch the stumps or chase the flying 'leathery duke' of Harrow song."
"Well, it's a far cry from Hambledon to Downend," quoth Mr. Punch, pensively; "but even the gods of 'the Hambledon Pantheon,' as picturesque John Nyren called them, might have admitted the Downend Doctor as their Jove. Or, adopting his other figure, have made him the King Arthur of their Round Table, vice old Richard Nyren retired."
"I see you read what is worth reading," responded the Kentish Big 'Un. "Dick Nyren's style was as sound and honest and brisk as the English ale he lauded,—'barleycorn, such as would put the soul of three butchers into one weaver.' But the great Gloucestershire gentleman is worthy to bend the bow of Ulysses."