e middle stump was knocked clean out of the ground. Caesar's
partner, a steady, careful player, had been bowled by his first ball.

Two wickets for 17.

The crowd were expecting the hero, but Fluff was walking towards the
wickets, wondering whether he should reach them alive. Never had his
heart beat as at this moment. Scaife had come up to him as soon as he
had examined the pitch.

"Fluff, I am putting you in early because you are a fellow I can trust.
My first and last word is, hit at nothing that isn't wide of the wicket.
The ground will probably improve fast."

Fluff nodded. A hive of bees seemed to have lodged in his head, and an
active automatic hammer in his heart; but he didn't dare tell the Demon
that funk, abject funk, possessed him, body and soul.

The second bowler began his first over. He bowled slows. Desmond played
the six balls back along the ground. A maiden over.

And then that thick-set, muscular beast, for so Fluff regarded him,
stared fixedly at Fluff's middle stump. Fluff glanced round. The
wicket-keeper had a grim smile on his lips, for his billet was no easy
one. Cosmo Kinloch at short slip looked as if it were a foregone
conclusion that Fluff would put the ball into his hands. Then Fluff
faced the bowler. Now for it!

The first ball was half a foot off the wicket, but Fluff let it go by.
The second came true enough. Fluff blocked it. The third flew past
Fluff's leg, but he just snicked it. Desmond started to run, and then
stopped, holding up his hand. Cheers rippled round the ring for the
first hit to the boundary. That was a bit of sheer luck, Fluff reflected.

After this both boys played steadily for some ten minutes. Then, very
slowly, Caesar began to score. He had made about fifteen when he drove a
ball hard to the on, Fluff backing up. Desmond, watching the travelling
ball, called to him to run. It seemed to Desmond almost certain that the
ball would go to the boundary. Too late he realized that it had been
magnificently fielded. Desmond strained every nerve, but his bat had not
reached the crease when the bails flew to right and left.

Out! And run out!

Three wickets for 41!

A quarter of an hour later Fluff was bowled with a yorker. He had made
eleven runs, and kept up his wicket during a crisis. Harrow cheered him
loudly.

And then came the terrible moment of the morning. Scaife went in when
Fluff's wicket fell. The ground had improved, but it w