Barnes was an enthusiastic cricketer. He studied his Wisden, and he had an immense respect for Wrykyn cricket.
"Are you the M. Jackson, then, who had an average of fifty-one point nought three last year?"
"Yes."
Barnes's manner became like that of a curate talking to a bishop.
"I say," he said, "then—er—will you play against Downing's to-morrow?"
"Rather," said Mike. "Thanks awfully. Have some tea?"
CHAPTER XL
THE MATCH WITH DOWNING'S
It is the curious instinct which prompts most people to rub a thing in that makes the lot of the average convert an unhappy one. Only the very self-controlled can refrain from improving the occasion and scoring off the convert. Most leap at the opportunity.
It was so in Mike's case. Mike was not a genuine convert, but to Mr. Downing he had the outward aspect of one. When you have been impressing upon a non-cricketing boy for nearly a month that (a) the school is above all a keen school, (b) that all members of it should play cricket, and (c) that by not playing cricket he is ruining his chances in this world and imperilling them in the next; and when, quite unexpectedly, you come upon this boy dressed in cricket flannels, wearing cricket boots and carrying a cricket bag, it seems only natural to assume that you have converted him, that the seeds of your eloquence have fallen on fruitful soil and sprouted.
Mr. Downing assumed it.
He was walking to the field with Adair and another member of his team when he came upon Mike.
"What!" he cried. "Our Jackson clad in suit of mail and armèd for the fray!"
