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 preferred doing a thing to talking about it, and who wanted to know a lot of things that he did not like to ask, made sundry attempts to change the conversation. He asked after the horses, and was both sorry and embarrassed to gather that the stable had been reduced. He tried Evan's friends, the Miss Christies, as a safer topic; he had always admired them himself, at the tremendous distance of old days; but this time he called them "the Christies," and it was Evan who perhaps inadvertently supplied the "Miss" in answering.

No; cricket was the only talk. And as they wandered back towards the thin church spire with the golden cock atop, looking rather like an inverted note of exclamation on a sheet of pale blue paper, it was made more and more plain to Jan that he was not to regard himself as the only cricketer. But he had no desire to do so, and nothing could have been heartier than his attitude on the point implied.

"You'll get your colours next year, Evan, and then we'll be in the same game every day of our lives!"

"I have my hopes, I must say; but it's not so easy to get in as a bat."

"No; you may get a trial and not come off, but a bowler's bound to if he's any good. Anyhow you're in a jolly strong house, and that's always a help."

"We ought to be in the final this year," said Evan, thoughtfully. "And so ought we," said Jan.

They were both right; and the last match of the term on the Upper was the decisive tussle between their two houses. It was also Evan's first appearance in the very middle of that august stage, and a few days before the event he told Jan that his people were coming down to see it. Jan could not conceal his nervousness at the