nd a
little hard work, and it seemed a simple thing to get wickets if you
had unlimited power of keeping yourself on and had terrorised your
fielders into holding on to anything. And so, weary of the Upper Sixth
and Foskett and even Finney, and wearier far of wondering whether the
Public Schools were right, and how and when the Trade Unions would take
them over, he found comfort in the googly.

During the holidays he had put up a stump on the Berrisfords' lawn, and
practised leg-breaks, waiting patiently for the desired freak which
should turn from the off. Sometimes it had come, but Martin never had
the least notion why it came: still the essential and undeniable fact
was that it had come. On the second night of term he put it to Rayner
that he was intending to bowl googlies.

"My hat!" said Rayner. "And you'll be house captain usually!"

"Exactly," answered Martin. "That is the point."

Rayner smiled grimly. "Think of the house, old man!" he exclaimed.

"I shall. Really I do break both ways."

"And how often do you bounce?"

"That depends. Anyhow it's the googly man's privilege to pitch one
ball in six on his own toss. Have you ever seen young Jack Hearne?"

Rayner neglected the question. "Look here!" he said, "are you really
going to bowl?"

"Rather! But I'll make you an offer. If I don't take ten wickets in
the first fortnight with an average under eighteen, I'll never do it
again."

"Done!" said Rayner confidently.

Martin triumphantly kept his side of the agreement. The ordinary house
pitches were rough and ready, the ordinary house player a slogger.
Martin's ordinary ball was well pitched up and apparently simple. But
he had had his eye on two or three small boys in the junior team who,
though poor bats, could run like hares in 'the country' and hold on to
anything they touched. These he translated to the first, to the vast
indignation of several clumsy hitters who were moved down in their
stead. The policy was a success. Martin used to go on first before
the other side were set and occasionally got a victim in the slips or
enticed a steady man in front of his wicket. Then he made way for
orthodox 'fast rights,' but after the fall of five or six wickets he
would polish off the tail with atrocious slow stuff. His small boys
were scattered far away and interfered considerably with an adjacent
game: they had plenty to do and were given an ice for every catch they
held. Martin soon f