charging across it just as the bowler bowls.'

Mr Bickersdyke turned a slightly deeper shade of purple, and was about
to reply, when what sporting reporters call 'the veritable ovation'
began.

Quite a large crowd had been watching the game, and they expressed
their approval of Mike's performance.

There is only one thing for a batsman to do on these occasions. Mike
ran into the pavilion, leaving Mr Bickersdyke standing.




2. Mike Hears Bad News


It seemed to Mike, when he got home, that there was a touch of gloom in
the air. His sisters were as glad to see him as ever. There was a good
deal of rejoicing going on among the female Jacksons because Joe had
scored his first double century in first-class cricket. Double
centuries are too common, nowadays, for the papers to take much notice
of them; but, still, it is not everybody who can make them, and the
occasion was one to be marked. Mike had read the news in the evening
paper in the train, and had sent his brother a wire from the station,
congratulating him. He had wondered whether he himself would ever
achieve the feat in first-class cricket. He did not see why he should
not. He looked forward through a long vista of years of county cricket.
He had a birth qualification for the county in which Mr Smith had