his own stated office of carter's boy. There he works hard from
five till seven, and then he comes here to work still harder, under
the name of play--batting, bowling, and fielding, as if for life,
filling the place of four boys; being, at a pinch, a whole eleven.
The late Mr. Knyvett, the king's organist, who used in his own
person to sing twenty parts at once of the Hallelujah Chorus, so
that you would have thought he had a nest of nightingales in his
throat, was but a type of Joe Kirby. There is a sort of ubiquity
about him; he thinks nothing of being in two places at once, and for
pitching a ball, William Grey himself is nothing to him. It goes
straight to the mark like a bullet. He is king of the cricketers
from eight to sixteen, both inclusive, and an excellent ruler he
makes. Nevertheless, in the best-ordered states there will be
grumblers, and we have an opposition here in the shape of Jem
Eusden.

Jem Eusden is a stunted lad of thirteen, or thereabout, lean, small,
and short, yet strong and active. His face is of an extraordinary
ugliness, colourless, withered, haggard, with a look of extreme age,
much increased by hair so light that it might rather pass for white
than flaxen. He is constantly arrayed in the blue cap and
old-fashioned coat, the costume of an endowed school to which he
belongs; where he sits still all day, and rushes into the field at
night, fresh, untired, and ripe for action, to scold and brawl, and
storm, and bluster. He hates Joe Kirby, whose immovable
good-humour, broad smiles, and knowing nods, must certainly be very
provoking to so fierce and turbulent a spirit; and he has himself
(being, except by rare accident, no great player) the preposterous
ambition of wishing to be manager of the sports. In short, he is a
demagogue in embryo, with every quality necessary to a splendid