Page:The Hambledon Men (1907).djvu/125

 you both, and, if true, it clearly shows, according to my opinion, that the judgement of the people who played against you must have been strangely at fault, or they might have prevented it; for had but the long-stop been well acquainted with the game, he would have put you out.

I always admired your fielding, Jack: I am not sure that your middle wicket (the post that your father occupied) was not as good as his—though, I dare say, you would not allow this. Certain am I that a better never was put at that post. And now, farewell, my old club-fellow.

Reader! in a few words (now he has left the room), I assure you that in every way he was as complete a chap as I ever knew—a genuine chip of the old block—an admirable player, and a highly honourable man. The legs at Mary-le-bone never produced the least change in him; but, on the contrary, he was thoroughly disgusted at some of the manoeuvres that took place there from time to time.

About the time that John Small had risen into the celebrity I have just been describing, his father and Nyren retired from the field. I cannot do better, in concluding these brief recollections, than enumerate the most eminent players in the Hambledon Club when it was in its glory.

No eleven in England could have had any chance with these men; and I think they might have beaten any two-and-twenty.