Kitabı oku: «David Blaize», sayfa 17

“I shall take this to the Head, and read it him,” he said. “Just listen: pretty dignified position for you, isn’t it? ‘To the Court of Appeal. Please Blaize, Manton got an awful soaker because somebody else put my sponge on the top of his door, which soused him; and because it was my sponge he says he’ll whack me unless I find out who did it and tell him, which isn’t fair, because it’s not my business. So I appeal. M. C. Jevons.’ ”

Manton was getting a little rattled. Otherwise he would not have done anything so foolish as try to grab this paper. David whisked it away.

“I shall say, too, that you tried to get hold of this,” he said. “Better sit down, Manton. That’s right. And I shall tell him that your notion of authority is to look in a fellow’s private drawer when he’s out, to see if you can nail a pipe.”

“I never did,” said Manton wildly. “That was Crossley.”

“Oh then, I suppose Crossley will explain that,” said David. “Of course it may all be stale news to the Head, since you gave him a pretty full account, but I’ll just see if the Head happened to listen to that part. You see, we don’t in the least mind telling you what we’re going to say to the Head, though you’re too superior to tell us what you said. I’ve told Adams about it already, and he thinks you’re an awfully good prefect, of course. And then, you see,” concluded David cheerfully, “when we’ve told him all that really happened, why shouldn’t we make up a lot that didn’t? Probably you did the same. Gosh, the Head will have a wonderful high opinion of you before I’ve done. I shouldn’t wonder if it isn’t more than he can bear, and jolly well breaks down and sobs and kneels and gives thanks that he has such a ripping couple of prefects in this house, to keep us all in order.”

“Well, you needn’t be sarcastic about it,” said Manton.

“Yes, I need, because you began about having a fourth-form Court of Appeal to override us. You think that it’s only you who can be so damned sarcastic and superior, and give any garbled account you like to the Head – ”

“It wasn’t garbled.”

“It must have been, or do you suppose that a sensible chap like the Head could have taken your side? Perhaps you didn’t invent things, but I swear you left out some jolly important ones, like your not being able to cane a cheeky junior without getting Crossley to help you, and then whacking him on the shin instead. You should have seen Adams shaking when I told him about it. And I bet you said we set ourselves in opposition to you. That’s a lie. We backed your authority up except when you made such utter squirts of yourselves that we couldn’t. We helped you, you goat! We did for you what you couldn’t do for yourselves! Lord, it makes me hot to talk to a chap like you. Go on, Bags – I mean, Brother Crabtree.”

Manton was beginning to present so ludicrous an appearance that learned brother Blaize could hardly prevent bubbling with laughter, which would have spoiled the forcibleness of the situation. His finger no longer kept his place in his book; his tight little mouth no longer complacently smiled, but had fallen open in dismay at David’s surprising remarks. And learned Brother Crabtree, with his suave style and slow sentences, did not reassure him.

“You see, there’s nothing like fair play, Manton,” said Bags. “I take it that you agree. And, as you’ve had an uninterrupted innings with the Head, and have run up a good score against us, I’m sure it is only proper that we should have our turn. Now, you were not wise in refusing to tell us what you had said to the Head; but the time for that is past now, and even if you wanted to, I don’t suppose we should listen to you. It was foolish of you, because you make us guess what it was, and naturally we guess that you made up a lot of lies, since we think that is the sort of thing you would do. So when you leave us now, which will be very soon, we shall make up some rippers about you and Crossley – really awful things, you know. I began making some up when Brother Blaize was addressing you. They are beauties.”

Gregson took up the tale with a wink at David in the eye away from Manton.

“And yet I don’t know that we need bother to make things up, Brother Crabtree,” he said. “It’s easier to say just a few of the things that really happened. We will tell the Head the sort of thing that goes on in Manton’s study when he thinks all the house are at preparation.”

Now Manton, for all his feebleness and ineffectiveness as a prefect, was as blameless as the Ethiopian.

“But I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

Gregson gave a little laugh which he transformed into a cough.

“Oh really?” he said. “But the Head will soon know what we mean. David – I mean Brother Blaize knows.”

David had caught the wink correctly. He put on a scornful face.

“Oh, that!” he said. “Yes, disgusting. You should be more careful about shutting your door, Manton. I and Gregson were walking about the house in slippers, following the example of the sixth form.”

“But I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Manton.

“Right oh. We won’t talk about it any more – to you.”

It was in vain that Manton assured himself that, as was perfectly true, his conscience was as clear as noon-day, for this wicked and subtly-acted fraud on the part of those fifth-form devils made him uncomfortable in spite of himself. And though he had not told the Head anything false about this beastly Court of Appeal, he certainly had not put their side of the case before him with the directness that it now appeared they were going to do on their own behalf. He had not, for instance, said that the Court of Appeal propped up, endorsed, supported the authority of himself and Crossley far more than they overrode it, though it was perfectly true (as he had told the Head) that they arrogated the supreme authority to themselves. Nor had it occurred to him to tell the Head that he and Crossley were quite incompetent to maintain discipline, that they got ragged to the point of having soap put in their kettles, that they toured the house in slippers. Truly the supplement to his tale was likely to be as voluminous as the tale itself.

Then David rose.

“Well, I don’t think we need detain you,” he said politely, “in fact, we’ve got a good deal to talk over among ourselves. Thanks awfully for coming. I expect we shall all meet again at the Head’s. That’s all then.”

But Manton was not quite sure that this was all. Various remarks by one or other of the members of the Court were beginning to cause him somewhat acute internal questionings. In especial he disliked the fact that Adams was in possession of the Court’s side of the case, and as like as not would give the Head the benefit of it.

“Perhaps we might discuss it all a little more,” he said, with a faint air of condescension still lingering about him. “I can – well, go to the Head, because he told me that if I had anything more to tell him, I was to. I might say – I really should be quite glad to – that Crossley and I didn’t want to get you into trouble.”

“Oh that’s all right,” said David cheerfully. “Don’t bother about that; you’ve got us into no trouble at all. I expect we shall come out perfectly right.”

“But the Head was awfully sick about it,” said Manton. “He laid a good deal of stress on the fact that you did set yourselves up as an authority superior to the prefects.”

“I expect I’ll make that all square,” said David. “I dare say I shall put our case as strongly as you put yours. Adams will have done the same too, I’m pretty sure. Of course we thought we might let you down more easily if you told us what you told the Head, and, after all, we gave you an opportunity of doing so. But you didn’t take it, so that’s finished.”

“Well, I think perhaps I was wrong not to tell you,” said Manton.

“I’m sure you were,” assented Bags warmly. “Isn’t it an awful pity one doesn’t think of that sort of thing sooner?”

“And so, if you like, I’ll tell you now,” said Manton, finishing his sentence.

“Oh, we don’t care a hang either way,” said David. “If you wish you may tell us, but it’ll be because you ask us if you may. We don’t want to hear it.”

“But I thought you asked me to,” said this dismal prefect.

“We did, but it’s no use to us now. We’ve made up our minds what to do.”

“Well, shall I tell the Head that you did often support the authority of the sixth? It might make him less sick with you.”

“Rubbish!” said Gregson. “You’re proposing these things now simply because you want us not to tell the Head our side of it. Is that the reason, or not?”

“I think it would – ”

“ ‘Yes’ or ‘no,’ ” said Brother Blaize in a terrible voice.

“Yes.”

“Why not have asked for mercy sooner then, instead of giving yourself all these airs? Get on!”

It was a very unstuffed Manton who was left at the end of this recital, for though he had not told the Head anything palpably false, yet the picture the Head must have drawn of the whole affair was about as erroneous as it could possibly be. He had let the Head assume that the authority of the prefects over the house was complete and satisfactory until the Court of Appeal set itself up, and he had certainly not said that the Court in most cases endorsed their authority, and saw that their orders were obeyed. All this was drawn from him by cool and ruthless questioning.

At the end David gave a long whistle.

“Well, ’pon my word, you are in a mess,” he said. “I’m not at all sure that I shouldn’t resign my prefectship if I were you before the Head kicked me out. You are the deuce of a hand at suppressio veri– ain’t that it, Brother Gregson? Why there isn’t an ounce of truth that you haven’t suppressed. And it’s all as full of suggestio– er – ”

“Falsi,” said Bags.

“Yes, suggestio falsi, as it can stick. The best thing you can do is to go and talk it over with Crossley, and then come back and tell us what you propose to tell the Head. If you don’t make a clean breast of it to him, and let him see that he’s only got a garbled – yes, I said garbled – version of it at present, you may be sure we shall. And when you’ve made up your minds, come back and tell us. Tap at the door first.”

The unstuffed Manton rose.

“Yes, I’ll do that,” he said. “Er – thanks.”

The door closed behind him, and David, who was growing extremely red in the face with suppressio risus, turned over and buried his face in the sofa-cushions, kicking wildly in the air. The other learned brethren stifled themselves lest Manton should hear them, and for a few minutes the Court of Appeal writhed in the agonies of silent mirth.

“O Lord,” said David at length, “I didn’t know there was such richness in the world! To think that half an hour ago that little squirt thought he had us on toast. Toast’s there all right, but ’tisn’t we who are on it. And now he’s making up another version which is ours, and wanting to know if that’ll satisfy us for him to go to the Head with. O Lord!”

“Too much mercy to let him,” said Bags.

“Not a bit of it. It’s much more effective if Manton puts our side of it to the Head.”

“But what if he doesn’t tell the Head all he says he’s going to?” asked Plugs.

“He must. The only way he can save his face is by going to him at once, before Adams can. Oh, there’s toast enough! Besides, when the Head sees us, we can soon tell if Manton’s given him the correct version.”

David, as President of the Court, was summoned to the Supreme Presence next day.

“I’ve been into the question of the Court of Appeal,” said the Head, “and what Manton told me last night puts a different complexion on it from what I had heard before. Of course the court must be dissolved at once, Blaize, you understand that?”

“Yes, sir.”

A faint smile spread over the Head’s face as he looked at the big, jolly boy.

“And tell your – your learned brethren,” he said, “what I say. The authorities in your house are Mr. Adams and the prefects, and there are no other authorities. But I believe now that on the whole the court meant well, and I am quite certain it enjoyed itself immensely. That particular enjoyment, I am afraid, must cease; but I want it – the court, that is – to continue meaning well in a private capacity, and to support the prefects’ authority, though it may no longer enforce or reverse their orders. And, Blaize, this is for your private ear alone: I think the Court probably did very useful work. But we mustn’t have any more courts. That’s all, then. How are you getting on? Well, I hope, and Mr. Adams seems to think so. Heard anything from your friend Maddox lately?”

“Gosh, what a brick!” said David to himself, as he went out..

CHAPTER XV

David was lying on his back under the big elm-tree near the cricket pavilion one Sunday afternoon in mid-June. By him, upright and attentive, sat the faithful Bags, listening and occasionally playing the part of Greek chorus (that is to say, putting in short, appropriate reflections) to a quantity of surprising information. Both boys wore the white tie characteristic of prefects on Sunday, for both had got their promotion into the lower sixth at Easter, and were colleagues of the inefficient Manton and Crossley. Those two young gentlemen, it may be remarked, were vastly relieved to have the burden of authority taken off their somewhat feeble shoulders, and David and Bags (particularly David) ruled the house with genial exuberance, and, when necessary, a rod of iron.

Just now both the iron and the exuberance were relaxed, and David lay there in an abandonment of physical laziness. His straw hat, with cricket eleven colours, was tilted over the top part of his face, so as to shield his eyes from the speckles and sparkles of sun that filtered through the canopy of leaves above him, and his mouth and chin alone were visible. His long legs were stretched out in front of him, showing a white hiatus between a despondent sock and the end of his trousers, and a persistent fly kept settling there, an attention which he acknowledged by dabbing at it with the other ankle.

“’Tisn’t as if I was a little boy any longer,” he said. “When a fellow is close on seventeen, as you and I are, it’s time he began to realise that he’s grown up. Why, my mother was only seventeen when she married.”

“But do you propose to marry at seventeen?” asked Bags with sarcastic allusion to the conversation that had gone before. “Where’ll she live? She can’t very well sleep in dormitory.”

David gave a little spurt of laughter, and the sun shone on his white teeth, and down his red throat. But he quickly became grave again.

“Is that funny?” he said. “If so, I suppose I’d better laugh, though I wish I saw the point. Who said I was going to marry? O gosh, what a clipper she is!”

“And it’s not much more than a fortnight ago that you thought all girls were rotten,” said Bags.

“More fool me, then, and more fool you for still thinking so. Lord, I wish I was really grown up, quite old, I mean, nineteen or twenty. I say, do you think she looked at me at all in chapel this morning?”

“I don’t think so,” said Bags cheerily, “and I was watching her pretty nearly all the time, as I knew you would ask. Oh, yes, she did once, when you began to sing Amen before it was time. But she looked away again at once.”

“Ha, ha,” said David in a dry, speaking voice, not laughing at all. “Well, she’s bound to come to the Old Boys’ match, isn’t she? And I don’t see how she can help noticing if I take any wickets.”

“Nor if you get constantly hit out of the ground,” said Bags.

David found he agreed with this.

“You’re a jolly sympathetic sort of pal,” he said at length.

Bags had a certain defence.

“Well, it seems so queer of you,” he said. “It’s rot if you’re going to think about and talk about nothing else than a female girl. Besides, she must be frightfully old. I shouldn’t wonder if she was twenty. Why, your mother had been married three years when she was as old as that.”

“Yes, and had had two children and had also died,” said David rather embarrassingly.

“Oh, sorry; I didn’t know,” said Bags. “But about your girl now,” he went on hurriedly. “How do you know she isn’t engaged already? She easily might be; she’s awfully pretty. I grant you that: at least, I suppose she is, though both you and I used to think that all girls looked exactly alike.”

“Idiots! Idiots we were!” said David, kicking wildly in the air.

“And what are you going to do?” continued Bags, who always saw the practical issues. “Are you going to tell her how frightfully keen you are on her!”

“I expect she guesses,” said David solemnly. “She came to tea with me twice in my study, and it’s rather marked for a fellow to ask a don’s daughter to tea twice in the same half, specially if she comes the first time.”

“Well, but you didn’t say anything sweet and moonlightly to her,” said Bags. “You talked about nothing but cricket. Besides, Plugs and I were there the whole time, and so was Mother Gray.”

David drew a long breath, and stretched his arms and legs out in the form of one crucified till elbows and knees were taut.

“Violet Gray!” he said, dwelling on the syllables. “Did you ever hear such a jolly name? And it’s just like her; it’s a slim, honey-coloured-hair name.”

Bags groaned slightly. It really was appalling for David to be in this deplorable state.

“Violet Gray,” he said, in a business-like manner. “H’m, Violet Gray! I think it sounds better than Violet Blaize.”

David sat up.

“Bags, you don’t understand one single thing about it,” he said. “How can I explain? She’s just the most wonderful and beautiful thing that ever happened. I wonder if Frank will understand. I shall tell him, but nobody else. He’s coming down end of next week.”

“He’ll probably cut you out,” said Bags, who thought a bracing treatment was best for his idiotic friend.

“Not he: we’re pals. Of course he could if he wanted, since any girl would fall in love with Frank straight off, if he held up his little finger. Jove, I’d give anything to see the ’Varsity cricket-match this week. And to think that in final house-match last year I was in at one end, and a Cambridge cricket blue the other.”

“Well, that happened to everybody else in the house-eleven,” said Bags, “since Maddox went in first and carried his bat!”

David laughed.

“So it did,” he said. “I’ll back you against any one in the world, Bags, for bald literal prosaicness. You haven’t got an ounce of imagination. You see things just exactly as they happen. You’ve less of romance than – than a horse-roller,” he said, looking round for inspiration and seeing that useful article with its shafts in the air.

“Perhaps I have, perhaps I haven’t,” said Bags. “But it’s perfectly true I don’t jaw about it. Never mind that. Look here: supposing you might either kiss Violet Gray, twice, we’ll say, or see the Oxford and Cambridge match, which would you choose?”

“Depends on the match,” said David. “Of course if Frank was going to make a century, and I were to see him do that, I don’t know what else I could choose. O Lord, but fancy kissing her, though! I wish you wouldn’t ask such stumpers. But that’s you all over. You want me to be practical, and say which I should like best. But I just can’t! I – I feel like a dog which is being whistled to from opposite directions by two fellows it loves. Doesn’t know which way to go.”

Bags sniffed scornfully.

“Oh, you’ve not got it so desperately, if you only feel like that,” he said.

David shut his eyes and made his mouth tight with an air of martyr-like determination.

“I should choose kissing her,” he said, “because Frank could tell me all about the match afterwards, and besides, it would all be reported in the Sportsman, and I could read about it. But I couldn’t read about my kissing her in the paper; at least, I don’t know in which. Oh Lord, but fancy missing seeing Frank putting perfectly straight balls away to the leg boundary in the ’Varsity match, and then scratching his ear, as he always does when he hits a boundary, as if wondering what on earth has happened to the ball. I don’t know which I should choose. I Don’t Know.”

David looked mournfully round for inspiration and lay down again.

“After all, I wonder whether it’s worth while doing anything or getting anything,” he said with a sudden lugubrious accent. “I tried to think it would be a damned fine – jolly fine thing to get into the sixth, and yet before a month was out we both got absolutely accustomed to it. It’s been just the same about getting into school-eleven – oh, well, not quite, because I do enjoy that most awfully still. But I dare say it won’t last. Why, a year ago, if I had been told that I might have any two things I wanted, I should have chosen to get into the sixth and the eleven. It didn’t seem that there was anything more to want.”

“I should have thought you would have chosen that Maddox shouldn’t leave,” remarked Bags.

“No use wishing that: he had to. Besides, if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t be in the Cambridge eleven now. And you can’t choose anything that clips your pal’s wings. ’Tisn’t my expression; Adams said it the other day when he was talking to me about Jev.”

“Didn’t know Jevons had any wings,” said Bags.

“Nor did I. But Adams seems to think so. I say, Adams is rather a wise sort of man, and he sees just about three times as much as I thought. Oh, and he told me Hughes had passed into Sandhurst. He must have become a decent chap again.”

“They do,” said Bags.

“Jolly glad! About Adams: I always imagined that as long as he wasn’t bothered, he didn’t mind much what happened, short of a public row. But I believe his funny old eye is on us more than we think.”

“And much more than it used to be!” said Bags. “You know the bizz about the Court of Appeal woke him up tremendous. There was a regular Insti- and Consti-tution going on in the house under his very nose, and he had never suspected it. Up till then he didn’t bother about what any one did as long as there wasn’t a row. You know, David, the house was a perfect hell about the time you and I came here, and Adams hadn’t a notion of it.”

David sat up quickly.

“I dare say,” he said, “but Frank kept all that away from me. Anyhow, the house is pretty well all right now. There is nothing to make a row, no smoking, no cribbing, no filth. It’s ever so much more cheery to be like that. And just think that less than three years ago, Bags, you and I were just beginning as two dirty little fags. What a bag of tricks has happened since then! What were we talking about? Oh, Jevons. Adams was awfully decent to me about it; made me blush. He said I’d taught Jev to be clean – that’s true. When he first used to fag for Frank, I wanted to wash the tea-cups again when his filthy little paws had touched them – and, oh yes, he said I’d cured him of swearing, which perhaps was true also, though it seemed rather bad luck on him to be whacked by me for swearing, when, as Adams said, he’d picked it up from me. So I had to cure myself as well, which I’ve almost done. But then I couldn’t whack myself when I swore, so Jev got on quicker than I did.”

“You’re not getting on much now,” remarked Bags, patiently listening.

“Yes, I am. Shut up; I’m just coming to the wings. Adams said I was fussing over him too much, and tying a string to his leg, and clipping his wings, when it was time for him to fly about as he damn pleased. (Lord, Jev would have got whacked for that!) But, you see, he’s turning out rather a fetching kid – good-looking, you know, and all that, and I’m not going to have him taken up by some brute and spoiled. However, any one who tries will have a nasty time with me first. But I suppose Adams is right: Jev’s got to begin looking after himself. I’m rather sorry in a way though. It’s good sport looking after a kid like that, and seeing it doesn’t come to any harm. He’s an affectionate little beggar, too, and I believe he knows it would make me pretty sick if he got into beastly ways. I say, I’m afraid I’m talking like a missionary.”

“On the plains of Timbuctoo,” remarked Bags.

“Yes, anywhere. Rum fellow you are, Bags. You let me jaw to any extent without yawning or telling me to shut it. But there are such a lot of frightfully interesting things that you must talk about in order to find out what you really think. Jev, for instance: I had no idea that I was a missionary till I began to jaw. By the way, my father is coming down for the Old Boys’ match next week. D’you remember that awful morning when he bowled into the wrong net at Helmsworth and how ashamed I was? Funny how one changes: I should just love it if he did it again now, because it’s so jolly sporting of him to try to bowl at all. My sister’s coming, too, and of course Frank will be here playing for the Old Boys. What a family! They all love Frank at home; he and my father are tremendous pals: they talk about Norman and Perpendicular and Transitional till all’s blue. He stayed with us most of the Christmas holidays, you know, when his mother was abroad.”

David sat up again.

“Lord, what a lot of things there are!” he said appreciatively.

“Not to mention Her,” said Bags.

“No. Oh, by the way, I saw her coming out of Madden’s the photographer’s the other day. Do you suppose she’d been done? By Jove, shouldn’t I like one?”

“Well, ask her then,” said Bags with infinite patience.

David knitted his forehead into a diplomatic frown.

“I couldn’t straight off like that,” he said. “But I might lead up to it. I might say I thought Madden took jolly good photographs, and see what she said.”

“Suppose she said that she thought he didn’t,” said Bags wearily.

“Well, I could say that – that no one could do justice to some people. Or is that laying it on rather thick? Oh, by the way, I’ve been devilish cunning. The Head told me that my last iambics were pretty rotten, and that I’d better have some private tuition, so I asked if I might go to old Gray for it. Jolly smart, that. So I’m going to drop French and have private tu with Gray, beginning to-morrow.”

“ ‘Come into the garden, Maud,’ ” remarked Bags.

“What’s Maud got – oh, I see, you mean Violet. Yes, that’s the idea. Going in and out of the house, I’m sure to run across her. See? Why, it’s striking four. Let’s go down to house.”

David, as is the way of boys rising seventeen, had been growing tremendously these last six months, not in physical ways only, but in stature of the mind. It was impossible to imagine a boy less of a prig than he, or one so unweighted with the sense of duty or responsibility, but with his growth he had taken up his responsibilities quite simply and unconsciously and eagerly, without having any egoism about it. He did not, in fact, do these things and behave in a manner that made him so breezy a treasure to his house-master because he heavily realised that there were things he ought to do, and a manner in which he ought to behave, but because he obeyed unconsciously the bent of his natural instincts, which were those of a very high-spirited and excellent fellow now budding from boyhood into early manhood. He had no private meditations at all on the subject, but merely lived in active and wholesome ways and enjoyed himself immensely, and if by any chance he had come to learn what Adams really thought of him, he would have had no doubt that his informant was just “pulling his leg.” His genial unconsciousness that he had any influence at all was exactly that which made his influence so strong. He had the admirable gift of not thinking about himself, but purely about the large quantity of attractive affairs that made up life, and the number of “jolly chaps” with whom he was associated. He had even been known to admit that Manton and Crossley, to counteract whose ridiculous ineffectiveness the Court of Appeal had been founded, were decent enough, though of course no earthly good as prefects. In the same way, it was from no sense of conscious duty that he had educated and still watched over Jevons: “it was sport looking after a kid,” was exactly the true account of the trouble he had taken. Then, part of his growth, had come this violent adoration of Violet Gray, as natural as the strutting of the young male bird, when first it is conscious of another sex than his. David had suddenly perceived that though in many things girls are “rotters,” there was something about them that made it necessary to wear buttonholes, and, if possible, make runs or take wickets for other reasons than those generally necessary..

The two boys strolled at Sunday pace down over the hot, sunny field, which wore its air of Sabbatical and empty leisure. May had been a wet month, and the grass still retained the varnished freshness of spring except where in patches it had been worn by pitches or practice-nets. But for the last fortnight no rain had fallen, and the light soil, quick to dry, was beginning to get hard and give bowlers such as David the crumbling wickets in which his soul delighted. Adams’s house had scraped through the first ties of house-matches, for though David, on whom they relied to thwart and discomfit their opponents, had proved on that occasion to be extremely expensive, and quite useless as a bowler, he had in some weird fashion of his own managed to make fifty of the most awful runs ever scored, chiefly by amazing miss-hits over the heads of point and slips. He had also been badly missed off the first ball he received, which added humour to the performance, and a little later his leg-stump had been smartly hit, though without displacing the bails. (He had hailed this with a shriek of laughter.) But in the second tie played last week he had shown himself in truer colours, and had been bowled fair and square in both innings without scoring at all, but had done things with the ball that really seemed inspired by Satan. He had grown into a bowler of the googliest type, and had discovered, all for himself, that if he let his shirt-sleeve wave in the air instead of rolling it tight up round his elbow it presented a much more puzzling outline to the batsman.¹ On that day there had been, too, a high cross-wind, and all that most of the batsmen who were favoured with his deliveries knew was that from very far off an immense lanky figure came prancing in a curved run up to the wickets, and that from somewhere at the end of clothes hung up to dry a quavering object that was supposed to be a cricket-ball skidded through the air in such a manner that it was really impossible to tell what it was doing or what it would do. Sometimes when it looked most charged with incalculable waywardness it did nothing but bounce as an innocent and rotund ball should; at other times (chiefly when it looked almost pathetically guileless) it played the lowest tricks that the laws of spin permitted. It kicked out like a horse when it pitched, or it leaped nervously aside as if trying to avoid the bat: in fact, the odds were that it did precisely what you didn’t expect. Or, again, the demoniac Blazes would run up to the wickets with less than his usual prance, but in a slow and thoughtful manner as if he had a headache. But if the wary batsman imagined (as he not unfrequently did) that this was the prelude to a slow and thoughtful ball, he occasionally (though not always) found he was quite in error. An extremely fast and straight ball was all that the thoughtful manner meant, whereby we learn the danger of trusting to appearances. And what made all these antics the more flustering and annoying was that David, with guileless sincerity, frankly confessed that he was often by no means clear himself what the ball was going to do.