A Prefect's Uncle

ften changes considerably after lunch. For a while it looked as if Marriott and Pr

the boundary. The third was a very simple-looking ball. Its sole merit appeared to be the fact that it was straight. Also it was a trifle shorter than it looked. Marriott jumped out, and got too much under it. Up it soared, straight over the bowler's head. A trifle more weight behind the hit, and it

p, but when it was the fast man's turn to bowl to Bruce, Marriott's successor, things began to happen. Bruce, temporarily insane, perhaps through nervousness, played back at a half-volley, a

it, I think.' Four for a hundred and fifty-seven had changed to seven for a hundred and fifty-nine in the cou

e to the score, all in singles, and was then yorked by the slow man, who meanly and treacherously sent down, without the slightest warning, a very fast one on the leg stump. Then Reece came

deavouring to make runs. He therefore tries to score off every ball, and thinks himself lucky if he gets half a dozen. Reece, however, took life more seriously. He had made quite an art of last-wicket batting. Once,

ball of diabolical ingenuity. As a rule, public feeling was against his trying the experiment. His captains were in the habit of enquiring rudely if he thought he was playing marbles. This was exactly wha

se from a hundred and seventy to two hundred. Pringle cut and drove in all directions, with the air of a

first two balls over the screen, was caught on the boundary off the thi

when the umpires had gone out, and the School were

t the top end, Gos

uel. 'Who's going

llo, where'

? Perhaps he's

u chaps se

me out of the First room myself, and he wasn't th

be going out to field soon. Anyhow, we can't wait for

he Pav., change

ght. He

gratified Lorimer, th

ied-looking little person who had fielded with immense zeal during the School innings at cover-point took the first ball. It was very fast, and hit him just under the knee-cap.

see that the batsman was in pain, and yet his second ball was faster than the first. It came in quickly from the off. The little batsma

id Norris from his

itting. But Gosling was irresistible. For three balls the priest survived. But the la

the deck chair felt that t

r every ball, soon settled down. He proved to be a conversationalist. Until he had opened his account, which he did with a stro

w. Not a bad bat this, is it? What? Yes. One of Slogbury and Whangham's Sussex S

r,' from

good make these Sussex--_Sp

ted another drive, but Marriott a

ur now, and still there were no signs of him. A man, thought Norris, who could cut off during the M.C.C. match (of all matches!), probably on some rotten business of his own, was beyond the pale, and must, on reappearance, be fallen upon and rent. He--here something small and red whizzed at his face. He put up his hands to protect himself. The ball struck them and bounded out again. When a fast bowler is bowling a sli

Gosling,

ext ball, conjuring up a beautiful vision in his mind. J. Douglas and Braund were fielding sli

ker facetiously to

ind. Not even a moment of solemn ago

as icy a

e said, 'perhaps you'd better go and

seeing you miss a gaper like that right into your hands ma

efore be rash to goad the captain too freely, while Norris, for his part, recalled the fact that Baker had promised to do some Latin verse for

short run, and when that unfortunate gentleman had sprinted some twenty yards, reconsidered the matter

e, three men left in two overs, one bowled by Gosling, the others caught at point and in the deep off

anything in the shape of nerves. He played the bowling with a stolid confidence, amounting almost to contempt, which struck a chill to the hearts of the School bowlers. It did worse. It induced the

had made thirty or more, and wa

scored a three off the first ball of the over, 'but some fellows simply detest fast bowlin

did that hap

lidly, picking up the two stumps which

an't underst--. Most curious thin

e Pavilion, stopping on the way to as

said Reece, put

ing,' growled Norr

' said Marriott. 'Switch it

e me a rest. Where on ea

a row about it. Norris seems to be getting rather

ho played a good deal for the M.C.C. He broke his journey to the wicket

oing to the Pavilion you might wait for

suddenly to the position o

since the innings began, was naturally feeling a little tired. He was losing his length, and bowling more slowly than was his wont. Norris now gave him a rest for a few overs, Bruce going on with rather innocuous medium left-hand bowling. The professional continued to jog along slowly. The novelist

' he said, 'I'm afraid w

y expressed,' said Marriott to t

o get wickets, but in a First Eleven match such an event was highly improbable. His bowling looked very s

He slashed at a very mild ball almost a wide on the off side. The ball touched the corner

ally scientific bowler on you're bound to get a wi

'there are five more ba

the batsman,'

next ball was not unlike his first, but it was straighter, and consequently easier to get at. The novelist hit it into th

for four to square leg, almost killing the umpire on its way, and the sixth soared in the old familiar manner

as I live,' said Marriott to Gosling, giving him the

le, bringing the novelist to the fore again, and Samuel Wilberforce G

orse than anything of Marriott's. It flew sluggishly down the pitch well outside the leg stump. The novelist watched it come, and his eye gleamed. It was about to bounce for

es with his hand, and watched th

as a crash of glass told of its arriva

fectly rig