t.

On the Tuesday Gordon went to the Oval; Lovelace major was playing
against Surrey. In the Strand he ran into Ferrers.

"Come on, sir I am just off to the Oval to see Lovelace's brother bat.
Great fellow! Captain of the House my first term."

"Right you are. Come on. There's a bus!"

For hours, or what seemed like hours, two painfully correct
professionals pottered about, scoring by ones and twos. Gordon longed
for them to get out. A catch was missed in the slips.

"Surrey are the worst slip-fielding side in England," announced Gordon
fiercely. The Oval crowd, always so ferociously partisan, moved round
him uneasily.

At last a roar went up, as Hitch knocked the leg stump flying out of the
ground. Then Lovelace came in. He looked just as he had looked on the
green Fernhurst sward, only perhaps a little broader. He was wearing the
magenta and black of the School House scarf. He was an amateur of the
R.E. Foster type--wrist shots past cover, and an honest off-drive.

A change came over the play at once. In his first over he hit two fours.
There was a stir round the ground. His personality was as strong as
ever.

A boy ran on the field with a telegram for him.

"I bet that means he has got to join his regiment," said Gordon, "and it
also means we are going to fight."

Lovelace shoved the telegram into his pocket, and went on batting just
as if nothing had happened, just as if he did not realise that this was
his last innings for a very long time. He hit all round the wicket.

At last a brilliant piece of stumping sent him back to the pavilion amid
a roar of cheering.

"My word, Mr Ferrers, there goes the finest man Fernhurst has turned out
since I have been there. And, my word, it will be a long time before we
turn out another like him. There will be nothing to see now he has
gone."

They wandered out into the Kennington Road, excited, feverish. They had
lunch at Gatti's, went into _Potash and Perlmutter_, and came out after
the first act.

"This is no time for German Jews," said Ferrers, "let's try the
Hippodrome."

It was an expensive day. They rushed from one thing to another. The
strain was intolerable. After supper they went to the West End Cinema,
and there, just before closing-time, a film, in which everyone was
falling into a dirty duck-pond for no ostensible reason, was suddenly
stopped, and there appeared across the screen the flaming notice:

ENGLAND HAS DECLARED WAR ON GERMANY