“Oh, bless you, I’d stand up to them all right, if I knew where to stand. A wicket-keeper’s supposed to keep the wicket, not run all over the ground after wides.”
“refreshments were being sold.”
During this unseemly argument, the Model Man, the Treasure, and the Doctor were all having an unpleasantness on their own account. The Doctor was imploring our Captain to take himself off and let somebody else bowl. He said: “Can’t you see they’ve collared you? They’ve scored twenty runs. Don’t think that I want to go on. Far from it. I’m only speaking for the good of the side.”
But the Model Man refused to leave off bowling for anybody. He emphatically denied that they had collared him. Then he changed the subject, and turned upon the Treasure, and asked him where he supposed he was fielding.
The Treasure answered:
“This is mid-on. I’m all right.”
“You may think it’s mid-on, but it isn’t,” shouted back the worried Model Man. “I’ve no doubt you’re all right,” he continued, bitterly, “but you’re no sportsman.”
After twenty more runs had been scored, the Fourth Officer unexpectedly and frankly admitted that he was not in form. He relinquished the ball, and said he had the makings of a sunstroke about his head, and went off to field among a few friends in a patch of shade under a tree, where all kinds of refreshments were being sold. Then our Captain held a consultation, and determined to try a complete change in the attack. He called upon the Doctor and the Treasure, and told them just to bowl quietly and carefully, and as straight as possible.
The Treasure started with yorkers; which was about the most effective thing he could have done, for, whenever he got one on the wicket, it bowled a black man. Two negroes, including the slogger, fell to him in his first over. Then the Doctor tried his hand, and began by being absurdly particular about the field. He put five men in the slips, and then started with terrifically fast full pitches to leg. A good player would have hit one and all of these right out of the island into the sea, but the people who were now at the wickets merely got out of the way, and let the Doctor’s deliveries proceed to the boundary for three byes each.