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306 your mouth with it, swallow as little as possible, and the thirst will quickly pass away.

It is the first long innings that requires nerve and judgment. The hopes and fears that spring up in the young players breast when he has scored something between fifty and a hundred make it a severe trial; and I daresay if you and I could read his thoughts we should find that every run of the last ten was made in mental fear accompanied by a thumping heart But when the hundred is reached, who can describe the joy that thrills him as he hears the hand-clapping and shouting!

I will not say, be modest in the hour of victory, but rather be modest after it. It is after the victory, as we listen to outside praise, that conceit and its enervating influence steal in. Turn a deaf ear, and remember it was in fear and trembling that you reached the much-desired score. Quiet confidence is a widely different thing from conceit. The former will help you to a run of big scores, the latter will cripple every effort to sustain your hardly earned reputation.

So far I have not touched upon the different wickets that are met with during the season. There have been years, such as 1887, when the weather has continued dry and fine for weeks, and the change from ground to ground was hardly perceptible; but I have known the wicket to change in a single match from dry, fast and true, to wet and soft, and then to have finished sticky and unplayable. Anyone who can score heavily through changes of that kind will be exceptionally fortunate. I venture to think it may be of some use to young cricketers if I tell them how they should play under these different conditions of ground. I will begin with what is known as a fast, dry and true wicket.

This is the wicket which all good cricketers like to play on, and, if it does not crumble before the match is finished, long scores may be expected. Never hesitate to play forward on a wicket of this kind, for the bowler can get little or no work on the ball, and, what is more, the further it is pitched up and the faster it comes along, the easier it is to play it forward and the