or it was a one day match, and Wrykyn, who
had led on the first innings, had only to play out time to make the
game theirs.

Sedleigh were paying the penalty for allowing themselves to be
influenced by nerves in the early part of the day. Nerves lose more
school matches than good play ever won. There is a certain type of
school batsman who is a gift to any bowler when he once lets his
imagination run away with him. Sedleigh, with the exception of Adair,
Psmith, and Mike, had entered upon this match in a state of the most
azure funk. Ever since Mike had received Strachan's answer and Adair
had announced on the notice-board that on Saturday, July the
twentieth, Sedleigh would play Wrykyn, the team had been all on the
jump. It was useless for Adair to tell them, as he did repeatedly, on
Mike's authority, that Wrykyn were weak this season, and that on their
present form Sedleigh ought to win easily. The team listened, but were
not comforted. Wrykyn might be below their usual strength, but then
Wrykyn cricket, as a rule, reached such a high standard that this
probably meant little. However weak Wrykyn might be--for them--there
was a very firm impression among the members of the Sedleigh first
eleven that the other school was quite strong enough to knock the
cover off _them_. Experience counts enormously in school matches.
Sedleigh had never been proved. The teams they played were the sort of
sides which the Wrykyn second eleven would play. Whereas Wrykyn, from
time immemorial, had been beating Ripton teams and Free Foresters
teams and M.C.C. teams packed with county men and sending men to
Oxford and Cambridge who got their blues as freshmen.

Sedleigh had gone on to the field that morning a depressed side.

It was unfortunate that Adair had won the toss. He had had no choice
but to take first innings. The weather had been bad for the last week,
and the wicket was slow and treacherous. It was likely to get worse
during the day, so Adair had chosen to bat first.

Taking into consideration the state of nerves the team was in, this in
itself was a calamity. A school eleven are always at their worst and
nerviest before lunch. Even on their own ground they find the
surroundings lonely and unfamiliar. The subtlety of the bowlers
becomes magnified. Unless the first pair make a really good start, a
collapse almost invariably ensues.

To-day the start had been gruesome beyond words. Mike, the bulwark of
the side, the man who had