Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 30).djvu/308

300 "There is a party of public-school boys down here, reading with a coach. Winchester men. Mere lads, of course, mere lads—nothing more. Still, two of them were in the team this year, and one of the two—Shellick—knocked up seventy against Eton."

The concentrated gloom seemed to make the room quite dark; or it may have been the tobacco smoke.

"Let's scratch," suggested somebody, miserably.

"But look here, Sharples," I said, "I can't understand this. Dacre told me he hadn't got a very strong side."

"No, poor man, he's had disappointments. You see, the Australians have got a match, so he couldn't get Trumper and Noble."

"I believe there's something at the bottom of all this."

"There is," said Sharples, "if you want to know. I got it from Wix, who seemed to think it was so good that he couldn't keep it to himself."

"Well?"

"The man Dacre, who has got a sense of humour which strikes one as almost irreligious in a curate, is putting up a deep jest on the Weary Willies. He has collected all these celebrities, and—this is the point; you ought to laugh here—he is going to play them all under assumed names. You see the rollicking idea? The score of the match will be printed in all the sporting papers, and it will get about that an ordinary village team has beaten the club hollow. We shall never live it down."

"We can explain," said Geake, hopefully.

"Who would believe us?"

"Now, look here," I said, firmly; "this is absurd. We mustn't chuck up the sponge in this rotten way. There's no earthly sense in going into the field a beaten side. Just because they've got a county man or two"

"Three," corrected Sharples.

"That doesn't necessarily mean that they will win. As a matter of fact, in this sort of game a good club bat is far more likely to make runs than a county man, who's used to billiard-table wickets. They may have a few cracks, but we're far stronger all through."

"I made twenty-three not out once," said Geake. "It was in a house match at Malvern."

"And, hang it all," I cried, warming to my work, "you and Geake, Sharples, are a good enough pair of bowlers to bother any batsman."

""My dear James," said Sharples, enthusiastically, "you make me blush. Your stately compliments embarrass me."

"It isn't only their batsmen," said Sanderson, despondently. "Look at their bowlers. Jack Coggin."

"And Smith," said Gregory.

"Who's Smith?" I said, scornfully. "A man who goes on second change"

"First change," said Gregory. "And for a first-class county."

"Well, look at our batting," I urged. "There's Sanderson, for one"

"And me," put in Geake. "I once made twenty-three not out. It was in a house match at Malvern."

"You never know what will happen at cricket," I said. "Buck up, and let's make these Somerset men so sick that they'll stay in their own county another year or hang themselves with the laces of their cricket boots."

"And, in passing," said Sharples, pouring out a measure of whisky and adding a dash of soda-water, "let's drink confusion to the man Dacre—the Rev. Dacre, curate and serpent. May his first ball hit him on the funny-bone, his second wind him, and his third get him l-b-w."

We drank the toast with considerable enthusiasm.

The inhabitants of Marvis Bay turned out in force to see us massacred. The curate's low plot had probably become public property, for there was an alert air about the crowd as of those who expect amusement in the near future.

"You've got some new men in your team, I see," I said to Dacre. I wondered whether Wix had told him that he had informed Sharples of the state of affairs.

Apparently he had not, for the serpentine curate made no confession. Instead, he waved his hand airily, as if to deprecate the attaching of any importance to the changes in his side.

"One or two," he said. "One or two; local celebrities, you know; very keen. You may teach them something of the game."

"Stranger things have happened."

I looked round me. To my left Jack Coggin was bowling his celebrated leg-theory balls to T. C. Smith.

"That's one of your new men, isn't it?" I said. "Looks a useful man."

"A very decent bowler on his day," said the curate.

I believed him. A week before Jack Coggin had taken five good Notts wickets for eighty-seven.