Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/238

 pavilion. "Don't be disappointed if you don't do quite as well next innings, or even next year. But on that wicket you might run through the best side in England—for the first time of asking."

"It's the break that does it," replied Jan, modestly; "and I don't even know how I put it on."

"It's that break when they're expecting the other. Most left-handers break away from you; it's expected of them, and you do the unexpected, therefore you can bowl. Your break is the easier to play, once they're ready for it. If you only had 'em both, with your length and pace off the pitch, there'd be no holding you in any state of life. You're coming to the Conversazione, of course?"

"I don't think so, sir," answered Jan, blushing furiously.

"But you've got your colours, and all the team came last year. It's the school songs from the choir, and ices and things for all hands, you know."

"I know, sir."

"Then why aren't you coming?"

Jan looked right and left to see that no inquisitive ear was cocked above the collar of contiguous blazer. And then for a second he contemplated the characteristic person of Dudley Relton, as dapper and well-groomed and unlike a pedagogue as Jan knew him to be in grain.

"I haven't got a dress-suit; that's why, sir!" he whispered bitterly.

"What infernal luck!" Relton looked as indignant as Jan felt—and then lit up. "I say, though, we're much the same build, aren't we? I suppose you wouldn't let me see if I can fix you up, Jan?"

Had it been possible to strengthen the peculiar bond already existing between man and boy, these words and