“It’s plain enough,” replied the Rector. “They left you nothing to wear so that if you escaped by any means it would take you longer to get on to the cricket ground.”
“Well, I can’t go like this,” answered Notchy, ruefully pointing to his petticoats.
“Now, then, Dicky,” cried the Rector authoritatively, “off with your clothes and give them to your brother.”
“But I can’t go about stark naked,” expostulated the shocked Dicky.
“Then put on his frocks,” retorted the Rector.
In a very short space the metamorphosis was complete, and Notchy and Dicky had exchanged clothes.
“Well, you’re as much alike as two pats of butter,” exclaimed the excellent Rector admiringly, when their respective toilets were complete. “Now just listen to me while I give you your orders!”
“Let me get on to that cricket field,” begged Notchy, to whom the situation had been hurriedly explained. “I’ll be in time to bowl if I can’t bat.”
The Hamble Green wickets fell rapidly after the dismissal of the supposititious Notchy, and in an hour the whole side was out for fifty runs. The intelligence was conveyed to Lord Jeffry at the “King’s Arms,” where, as the liquor was to his taste, he had
“‘Let me loose!’ roared Notchy in a very masculine voice.”
chosen to remain with a few kindred spirits, and he was consequently in rare good humour. About two o’clock Lord Bumper happened to thrust his head into the room, and the hilarious Jeffry at once hailed him.
“Hillo, Bumper, lad, how goes the match?” he roared, in tipsy good-humour. “Have Sampley notched their two hundred?”
“They’re all out for sixty notches!” retorted Lord Bumper, with cool satisfaction.
Lord Jeffry replied with a volley of oaths.
“That grand fellow Notchy’s been in rare form,” Lord Bumper continued. “None of them could play that overcast bowling of his.”
And as he was not disposed to remain any longer in the society of his false and dishonest friend, the young nobleman hastily withdrew.
“I’ll not believe it,” shouted Lord Jeffry. “It’s impossible. The fellow couldn’t hit a wicket.”
For naturally he imagined that Dicky was still standing in his brother’s shoes. However, a friend or two soon came in, and corroborated the information.
About four o’clock in the afternoon, when Lord Jeffry had become sufficiently sober, his companions managed to lead him out on to the common. The Hamble Green side was now batting.
