"Hello! Hello! Hel-lo!"...
EVOE.
THE VISIONARY TRIUMPH.
"This," he said, "is my favourite dream."
We were discussing our favourite dreams and prepared to listen.
"It is always," he went on, "the same—a cricket match: and the older I get and less able to play cricket, the oftener I have it. It is a real match, you must understand—first-class cricket, with thousands of spectators and excitement; and it is played a very long way from my home. That is an important point, as I will explain.
"I am merely one of the spectators. How long I have been watching I cannot say, but the match is nearing the end and our side—the side which has my sympathies—is nearly all out, but still needs a few runs to win.
"What the side is I cannot clearly tell; all I know is that it is my own county, I mean the county from which I come—say Kent—and the match is at Old Trafford or Bramall Lane, against either Lancashire or Yorkshire. But the important thing is that my side is a man short. This man either has been taken ill or has had to go away because of a bereavement. I am not clear as to that, but he is not there, anyway, and unless a substitute can be found Kent will be at a disadvantage and may lose."
We all got ready to say something.