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 noncricketing 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 imperiling 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 armed for the
fray!"

This was Mr. Downing's No. 2 manner--the playful.