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256 as soon as they begin to walk out with the girls. They like takin' their true-loves to our restaurants. Look yonder!' I followed his gaze, and saw across the room a man and a maid at a far table, forgetting in each other's eyes the good food on their plates.

'So it is,' said I. 'Go ahead.'

'Then, too, we have some town Volunteer corps that lay themselves out to attract promising youths of nineteen or twenty, and make much of 'em on condition that they join their Line battalion and play for their county. Under the new county qualifications—birth or three years' residence—that means a great deal in League matches, and the same in County cricket.'

'By Jove, that's a good notion,' I cried. 'Who invented it?'

'C. B. Fry—long ago. He said, in his paper, that County cricket and County volunteering ought to be on the same footing—unpaid and genuine. "No cricketer no corps. No corps no cricketer" was his watchword. There was a row among the pro's at first, but C. B. won, and later the League had to come in. They said at first it would ruin the gate; but when County matches began to be pukka county, plus inter-regimental, affairs the gate trebled, and as two-thirds of the gate goes to the regiments supplying the teams some Volunteer corps fairly wallow in cash. It's all unofficial, of course, but League Corps, as they call 'em, can take their pick of the Second Camper. Some corps ask ten guineas entrance-fee, and get it too, from the young