Willow the king

IT was the eve of Little Clumpton _versus_ Hickory. To those who are unfamiliar with these haunts of ancient peace this may seem a chronicle of the infinitely little. The Utopia...

Crash! Plop! The glass in the wardrobe door had met the fate of its predecessors. The aggravating thing about the wardrobe door is that if you have it of glass you must inevitab...

I CAME down to the ground at a little after ten. The match was to begin at eleven, sharp. The only sights of interest on my arrival were the ground-man marking out the crease, a...

“Hullo!” said I, “that’s Elphinstone. Remember him at ‘the House.’ There’s not much of him, but what there is is all-sufficing. And just look at those great big bounding Trentha...

HAD I been in less of a tottering funk, I might have taken the admirably timed arrival of the Authentics as an omen of good luck. But I was in that suicidal frame of mind when a...

I WAS still seated, striving to break to myself the news that I really must be out, and that my brave dreams were as dust, when the man I least desired to see--the General Nuisa...

“I don’t care a pin about human nature!” said Miss Grace, more fiercely than ever. “What’s human nature got to do with cricket? Did that miserable Toddles drop that catch, or di...

H. J. Halliday, not out 98 R. C. Dimsdale, lbw b T. S. M. Trentham 7 J. F. S. Oldknow, not out 46 Extras 14 ---- Total for 1 wicket 165

“And she wouldn’t, that’s a moral,” said her brother, “had it been anybody but the Guv. Her consideration for the Guv is something beautiful. ’Wish she’d extend it to some other...

CHARLIE’S second ball was one of his best breakbacks. The Captain in his carelessness played a bit outside it. Back went his off stick. At last the great partnership was dissolv...

I WENT home, and passed an unquiet night. I like to think myself a person of a sturdy unemotional habit whom neither men nor affairs can discompose; but I’m certain that every t...

“As Roberts is suffering from a strain,” said she, “and Charlie Townsend’s lost his length, and Jessop’s a bit on the short side at present, I think I’d better try myself to sta...

WHEN peace had been restored, Captain George remarked, “_Apropos_ of the Guv’nor’s curl in the air, it’s very singular and a bit annoying too that Grace is the only one of us wh...

WHILE eight men were scrubbing themselves in the bath-room prior to the dinner bell, their behaviour, as is only too usual when eight men are trying to do the same thing at the...

“Nineteen from forty-one, quick!” she cried, without looking up. And as I answered, after due thought, “Twenty-three, I mean twenty-four; no, I mean twenty-two,” she lifted her...

“Oh, Dimmy,” she said, “isn’t it divine! Isn’t it _noble_ of old Stoddy! But I knew it, I knew it all along. It would have been impossible not to take old Charlie. Wonder what t...

I REGRET to state that when Grace and I came to “the boys” in the dining-room, we discovered seven gentlemen seated round the dining-room table, engaged in a game called baccara...

“Quite a neat idea, this trial by cricket, from one point of view. The point of view is hers. It’s an attempt of course on the part of feminine delicacy to let a fellow down gen...

CONTRARY to expectation, breakfast was dispatched in sufficiently reasonable time to permit my match with Grace to start about eleven. Needless to say, Grace herself arranged th...

WHEN I buckled on Toddles’ pads I had all the symptoms of a bad attack. I was a trifle dizzy, I was half blind, my heart just seemed to be trying what it could do, while my limb...