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When our batsmen had got to the wickets it seemed as if the game would never begin, for Lambert took guard three times and looked round the ground so often to see where the fielders were placed that two or three of the Burtington men from sheer weariness began to turn somersaults.

First of all he got Ward to wire and ask Bunny Langham to drive over about ten o'clock and fetch us all back, and then he asked four or five of the most comical people in the Burtington team to come to The Reindeer after dinner and help at a smoking concert.

One or two men on our side tried to persuade Bagshaw that there was plenty of time left to make as many runs as we wanted and to get the Burtington men out again, but when Mr. Plumb was told what we were talking about he came out of the tent and joined us. He was inclined to be elated, and seizing Bagshaw by the arm said he should like to have a word with him.

Unfortunately the last Burtington batsman was more of a wag than a "sitter," he was the funny man of the team, and was so delighted with his own wit that Bagshaw said it would be a shame not to let him enjoy himself. "Every village team has its funny man," he said, "and we are jolly lucky to get him in last."

The captain of the Burtington team was the local publican, a hearty man who told us in the same breath that he was very glad to see us, and that he had played cricket for thirty years, boy and man. His name was Plumb, and I liked him very much; he played in both braces and a belt, because he told us belts were ticklish things and braces sometimes burst.

Bunny said that he was not going to hurry for any one, and wasted two or three valuable minutes before we got him safely into the cart. He was in an exceedingly bad temper, and it was only by dint of innumerable questions that we found that he had actually started to drive to Burtington and that something disastrous had happened on the journey.

The day following the Burtington match was a very peaceful one, but the evening brought with it a disturbance which was altogether unexpected. I was engaged at nine o'clock to read an essay to Mr. Edwardes, and I had been so energetic that I had written it two days before, which made me feel virtuous.

All of the Burtington team came and a number of their friends, in fact I should think that nearly all the labourers in the village were entertained by us during the evening. Mr. Plumb began by being very pleased, and the evening ended in what local newspapers call "harmony," which is the most polite way of saying that any one sang who liked and that the discord was something terrible.

Before they started Collier insisted on tossing to see who should have first ball, and when he won Lambert said it was of no consequence as he had always meant to have the first ball. The Burtington XI. waited patiently, and threw catches to each other with extraordinary violence, but although Mr.

The exact nature of that disaster none of us ever discovered, but what Bunny wished us to believe was that he went to sleep and was driven into by a furniture van, and since he had been kind enough to start to Burtington we should have been a complete set of bounders if we had not suppressed Dennison when he said that no one was likely to believe such a tale as that.