But the wicket was too good to give him a chance, and Mike, playing
himself in again, proceeded to get to business once more. Bowlers came
and went. Adair pounded away at one end with brief intervals between the
attacks. Mr. Downing took a couple more overs, in one of which a horse,
passing in the road, nearly had its useful life cut suddenly short.
Change bowlers of various actions and paces, each weirder and more
futile than the last, tried their luck. But still the first-wicket stand
continued.
The bowling of a house team is all head and no body. The first pair
probably have some idea of length and break. The first-change pair are
poor. And the rest, the small change, are simply the sort of things one
sees in dreams after a heavy supper, or when one is out without
one's gun.
Time, mercifully, generally breaks up a big stand at cricket before the
field has suffered too much, and that is what happened now. At four
o'clock, when the score stood at two hundred and twenty for no wicket,
Barnes, greatly daring, smote lustily at a rather wide half volley and
was caught at short slip for thirty-three. He retired blushfully to the
pavilion, amidst applause, and Stone came out.
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