four-ace smile, and there is a corresponding depression in the countenance of the great batsman. All down the still more numerous phases of wet, sticky, and real bird-lime wickets (impossible for nine out of ten batsmen)—down through all these the four-ace smile remains, and it is only when we arrive at the thoroughly sodden ground, with a faint drizzle or slight showers at convenient intervals, when the ball is wet, the footholds greasy, and there are bucketfuls of sawdust besprinkled here, there, and everywhere, that the batsman again reverses the situation, and, like an overfed fox-terrier, has acquired another poor rat of a bowler.
I say overfed advisedly—not that he is replete with runs on too many occasions in an ordinary season, when a fair amount of rain falls, and the good and bad wickets are allotted us fairly evenly, and a decent percentage of catches are held (which is very seldom the case); but when he glues himself for a day or day and a half to some easy-paced billiard-table wicket, where a blind boy could stay with a toothpick, I say he is overfed—he gluts himself with runs; and though, as I have said before, he has, in my humble opinion, less chances of distinguishing himself than the medium-paced bowler, and is in consequence of less value to his side (which, after all, is the very essence of the game), yet when his opportunity arises he overeats himself to an astonishing degree, and often grouses to a similar extent as the rat of a bowler catches him by the tail with a duck and one on a wicket of sun-baked clay.
