boys...?" I said.

"Not 'ope, it's a cert," said Stott. "I'll see no boy of mine touches a
ball afore he's fourteen, and then 'e'll learn from me; and learn
right. From the first go off." He was silent for a few seconds, and then
he broke out in a kind of ecstasy. "My Gawd, 'e'll be a bowler such as
'as never been, never in this world. He'll start where I left orf.
He'll ..." Words failed him, he fell back on the expletive he had used,
repeating it with an awed fervour. "My Gawd!"

I had never seen Stott in this mood before. It was a revelation to me of
the latent potentialities of the man, the remarkable depth and quality
of his ambitions....

VIII

I intended to be present at Stott's wedding, but I was not in England
when it took place; indeed, for the next two years and a half I was
never in England for more than a few days at a time. I sent him a
wedding-present, an inkstand in the guise of a cricket ball, with a
pen-rack that was built of little silver wickets. They were still
advertised that Christmas as "Stott inkstands."

Two years and a half of American life broke up many of my old habits of
thought. When I first returned to London I found that the cricket news
no longer held the same interest for me, and this may account for the
fact that I did not trouble for some time to look up my old friend
Stott.

In July, however, affairs took me to Ailesworth, and the associations of
the place naturally led me to wonder how Stott's marriage had turned
out, and whether the much-desired son had been born to him. When my
business in Ailesworth was done, I decided to walk out to
Stoke-Underhill.

The road passes the County Ground, and a match was in progress, but I
walked by without stopping. I was wool-gathering. I was not thinking of
the man I was going to see, or I should have turned in at the County
Ground, where he would inevitably have been found. Instead, I was
thinking of the abnormal child I had seen in the train that day;
uselessly speculating and wondering.

When I reached Stoke-Underhill I found the cottage which Stott had shown
me. I had by then so far recovered my wits as to know that I should not
find Stott himself there, but from the look of the cottage I judged that
it was untenanted, so I made inquiries at the post-office.

"No; he don't live here, now, sir," said the postmistress; "he lives at
Pym, now, sir, and rides into Ailesworth on his bike." She was evidently
about to furnish me with