EVOE.

* * * * *

THE VISIONARY TRIUMPH.

"This," he said, "is my favourite dream."

We were discussing our favourite dreams and prepared to listen.

"It is always," he went on, "the same--a cricket match: and the older
I get and less able to play cricket, the oftener I have it. It is a
real match, you must understand--first-class cricket, with thousands
of spectators and excitement; and it is played a very long way from my
home. That is an important point, as I will explain.

"I am merely one of the spectators. How long I have been watching I
cannot say, but the match is nearing the end and our side--the side
which has my sympathies--is nearly all out, but still needs a few runs
to win.

"What the side is I cannot clearly tell; all I know is that it is my
own county, I mean the county from which I come--say Kent--and the
match is at Old Trafford or Bramall Lane, against either Lancashire
or Yorkshire. But the important thing is that my side is a man short.
This man either has been taken ill or has had to go away because of a
bereavement. I am not clear as to that, but he is not there, anyway,
and unless a substitute can be found Kent will be at a disadvantage
and may lose."