Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/293

 "Hard luck, Rutter! I hoped you were going to set up a new school record."

"I don't care as long as we get you all out before lunch."

Jan was wiping the cluster of beads from his forehead, and dashing more from the peak of his cap before pulling it down once more over his nose. He only saw his mistake when A. G. Swallow looked at him with a smile.

"Why before lunch, with the afternoon before us?"

"Because I feel dead!" exclaimed Jan with abnormal presence of mind. "I could go on now till I drop, but I feel more like lying up than lunch."

"Not measles, I hope?" said Swallow; and certainly Jan looked very red.

"Had 'em," said he laconically.

"Then it's either cause or effect," remarked Swallow, turning to George Grimwood, who had long looked as inflated as though he had taught Jan all he knew. "I've often noticed that one does one's best things when one isn't absolutely fighting fit, and I've heard lots of fellows say the same."

Now George Grimwood, as already stated, was a professional cricketer of high standing and achievement; but by this time he was also a school umpire of the keenest type, and his original humanity had not shown itself altogether proof against the foibles of that subtly demoralising office. Not only did he take to himself entirely undue credit for Mr. Rutter's remarkable performance, but he grudged Mr. Goose that last wicket far more than Jan did. One hope, however, the professional had cherished all the morning, and it was not yet dead in his breast. He longed to see Mr. Swallow, his own old opponent on many a first-class field, succumb to his young colt in the end; and now there was not much chance of it, with