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Twenty-eight off one over, not to mention three wides, would have made Job foam at the mouth. You will probably get sacked. On the other hand, it's worth it. You have lit a candle this day which can never be blown out. You have shown the lads of the village how Comrade Downing's bowling ought to be treated. I don't suppose he'll ever take another wicket." "He doesn't deserve to."
I always want a wicket-keeper for my bowling." Whereupon I answered: "You want twenty in a row. One's no good." He said: "You don't like standing up to my fast ones, that's the truth." And I responded: "Oh, bless you, I'd stand up to them all right, if I knew where to stand. A wicket-keeper's supposed to keep the wicket, not run all over the ground after wides."
Every member of the club had now been tried with the ball, besides the three visitors, who certainly bowled fairly well, but nothing hysterically brilliant. Even Charley Bates had a turn, although I don't believe he had ever hit the wicket in his life; and on his surrendering the ball, after presenting our opponents with three wides and any number of byes, our captain was at his wits' end.
Then a black umpire said: "Play, gem'men," and our Fourth Officer started with his world-famed, natural leg-break. He bowled three wides in succession as a preliminary. It is not easy to bowl wides underhand, but that Fourth Officer managed it; and I began to understand why, after all, his county had determined to struggle along without him.
He charged up to the wicket as a wounded buffalo sometimes charges a gun. His whole idea now was to bowl fast. When a slow bowler starts to bowl fast, it is usually as well to be batting, if you can manage it. By the time the over was finished, Mike's score had been increased by sixteen, and the total of his side, in addition, by three wides.
That is laying in a stock of good works cheap. You won't mind a few wides, I hope; Robarts says there is too great a sameness about my bowling, so I want to practise twisters and shooters. You won't mind if I bowl at your legs?" "Not a bit; ignis via fire away." The necessity for violent exertion had been taken out of Buller, indeed it was now oozing away from every pore of his skin.
Each man's ambition, however, is less to defeat the returning power of the foe than to paralyse it by hitting the ball out of reach. It is as though a batsman were out if he failed to hit three wides. A good battitore, for instance, can smite the ball right down the sixty yards into the net, above the head of the opposing spalla who stands awaiting it at the far end.
That's a goodish orse the Admewall wides; I wonder if he is going to take him ome with him." "Haven't heard can't say. Jones, what's that thing that wont burn, do you know? Confound the thing, I have got it on the tip of my tongue too." "Asphalt," sais Jones. "No! that's not it; that's what wide-awakes are made of." "Perhaps so," sais Gage, "ass'felt is very appropriate for a fool's cap."
Then I love you," said Diana. "Now, listen to me I has been a-talking to him." "That's right, missy. Have a sip of my stout, won't you?" "No; I don't like it; it's black, nasty stuff. Put it away; I won't touch it. Well, now, listen to me, Uncle Ben. It apends altogether on whether you is good to Orion to-morrow or not whether he wides well, or whether he wides badly, and what I think is this "
At the very commencement of the summer term it was plain to everybody that something was wrong with the dux; he seemed to take no interest in the doings of his companions in the playground, and only once roused himself sufficiently to bang Cross with a leg-guard for bowling awful wides at cricket.