“Me, too.”
“Do you mean ‘also’ or ‘a brace’?” inquired Tom anxiously.
“‘Also,’” confessed Dick with reluctance.
“Signed?”
“Rather!”
A third pause.
“I tell you what it is,” said Tom; “we must agree on something, or we shall both get left. All we’re doing now is to confuse the poor girl. She evidently likes us both the same. What I mean is, we’re both so alike that she can’t possibly make a choice unless one of us chucks it. You don’t feel like chucking it, Dick. What?”
“You needn’t be more of an idiot than you can help.”
“I only asked. So we are evidently both determined to stick to it. We shall have to toss, then, to settle which is to back out and give the other man a show.”
“Toss!” shouted Dick. “For Dolly! Never!”
“But we must do something. You won’t back out like a sensible man. We must settle it somehow.”
“It’s all right,” said Dick. “I’ve got it. We both seem to have come here and let ourselves in for this rotten little village match, on a wicket which will probably be all holes and hillocks, simply for Dolly’s sake. So it’s only right that we should let the match decide this thing for us. It won’t be so cold-blooded as tossing. See?”
“You mean–-?”
“Whichever of us makes the bigger score today wins. The loser has to keep absolutely off the grass. Not so much as a look or a remark about the weather. Then, of course, after the winner has had his innings, if he hasn’t brought the thing off, and she has chucked him, the loser can have a look in. But not a moment before. Understand?”
“All right.”
“It’ll give an interest to a rotten match,” said Dick.
Tom rose to a point of order.
“There’s one objection. You, being a stodgy sort of bat, and having a habit of sitting on the splice, always get put in first. I’m a hitter, so they generally shove me in about fourth wicket. In this sort of match the man who goes in fourth wicket is likely to be not out half a dozen at the end of the innings. Nobody stays in more than three balls. Whereas you, going in first, will have time for a decent knock before the rot starts. Follow?”
“I don’t want to take any advantage of you,” said Dick condescendingly. “I shan’t need it. We’ll see Drew after breakfast and get him to put us both in first.”
The Rev. Henry Drew, cricketing curate, was the captain of the side.
Consulted on the matter after breakfast, the Rev. Henry looked grave. He was taking this match very seriously, and held decided views on the subject of managing his team.
“The point is, my dear Ellison,” he said, “that I want the bowling broken a bit before you go in. Then your free, aggressive style would have a better chance. I was thinking of putting you in fourth wicket. Would not that suit you?”
“I thought so. Tell him, Dick.”
“Look here, Drew,” said Dick; “you’ll regard what I’m going to say as said under seal of the confessional and that sort of thing, won’t you?”
“I shall, of course, respect any confidence you impart to me, my dear Henley. What is this dreadful secret?”
Dick explained.
“So you see,” he concluded, “it’s absolutely necessary that we should start fair.”
The Rev. Henry looked as disturbed as if he had suddenly detected symptoms of Pelagianism in a member of his Sunday-school class.
“Is such a contest quite–-? Is it not a little—um?” he said.
“Not at all,” said Dick, hastening to justify himself and friend. “We must settle the thing somehow, and neither of us will back out. If we didn’t do this we should have to toss.”
“Heaven forbid!” said the curate, shocked.
“Well, is it a deal? Will you put us in first?”
“Very well.”
“Thanks,” said Tom.
“Good of you,” said Dick.
“Don’t mention it,” said Harry.
There are two sorts of country cricket. There is the variety you get at a country-house, where the wicket is prepared with a care as meticulous as that in fashion on any county ground; where red marl and such-like aids to smoothness have been injected into the turf all through the winter; and where the out-fielding is good and the boundaries spacious. And there is the village match, where cows are apt to stroll on to the pitch before the innings and cover-point stands up to his neck in a furze-bush.
The game which was to decide the fate of Tom and Dick belonged to the latter variety. A pitch had been mown in the middle of a meadow (kindly lent by Farmer Rollitt on condition that he should be allowed to umpire, and his
