oted in Willoughby that
even this match came to be looked on quite as much as a struggle between
rival houses as between the school and an outside team.

The discovery was made that the eleven consisted of five schoolhouse
players, five Parrett's players, and one Welcher. More than that, the
ingenious noted the fact that the two best bowlers of the eleven were
Bloomfield and Fairbairn, one from each house, who could also both field
as wicket-keepers when not bowling. And the two second bowlers were
Game and Porter, also one from each house. This minute analysis might
doubtless have been continued down to the cover-points. At any rate, it
was manifest the two houses were very evenly divided, both as regarded
merit and place, and it would therefore be easy to see which contributed
most to the service of the school.

The Rockshire men arrived by the ten o'clock train, and were met as
usual by the Willoughby omnibus at the station. As they alighted and
proceeded to stroll in a long procession across the Big to their tent,
they were regarded with much awe and curiosity by the small boys
assembled to witness their advent, some of whom were quite at a loss to
understand how boys like themselves could ever expect not to be beaten
by great whiskered heroes like these. Even the young Welchers, who had
contrived to be practising close to the line of march, felt awed in
their presence, and made a most hideous hash of the little exhibition
with which they had intended to astonish their visitors.

The self-confident ease of these Rockshire men was even a trifle
discouraging for a few of the school heroes themselves, who looked on
nervously as their rivals coolly went up and inspected the wickets and
criticised the pitch, and then proceeded, laughing among themselves,
towards the pavilion. Things like this are more or less terrifying, and
an old team that comes down to play a young one ought to be more
considerate.

It was fortunate for the school team that all its members were not as
shy and diffident as others, or the operation of tossing for innings and
other matters of form would never have been got through.

Mr Parrett, however, as an old 'Varsity blue, was as great a hero in
the sight of Rockshire as Rockshire was in the sight of Willoughby, and
with his aid the preliminaries were all arranged, and Willoughby went
out first to field.

The Big was never so crowded with boys, masters, or the outside public,
as it was