when Mike had scored ninety-eight, causing him thereby to be clean
bowled by a long-hop.

It was the last day of the Ilsworth cricket week, and the house team
were struggling hard on a damaged wicket. During the first two matches
of the week all had been well. Warm sunshine, true wickets, tea in the
shade of the trees. But on the Thursday night, as the team champed
their dinner contentedly after defeating the Incogniti by two wickets,
a pattering of rain made itself heard upon the windows. By bedtime it
had settled to a steady downpour. On Friday morning, when the team of
the local regiment arrived in their brake, the sun was shining once
more in a watery, melancholy way, but play was not possible before
lunch. After lunch the bowlers were in their element. The regiment,
winning the toss, put together a hundred and thirty, due principally to
a last wicket stand between two enormous corporals, who swiped at
everything and had luck enough for two whole teams. The house team
followed with seventy-eight, of which Psmith, by his usual golf
methods, claimed thirty. Mike, who had gone in first as the star bat of
the side, had been run out with great promptitude off the first ball of
the innings, which his partner had hit in the immediate neighbourhood
of point. At close of play the regiment had made five without loss.
This, on the Saturday morning, helped by another shower of rain which
made the wicket easier for the moment, they had increased to a hundred
and forty-eight, leaving the house just two hundred to make on a pitch
which looked as if it were made of linseed.

It was during this week that Mike had first made the acquaintance of
Psmith's family. Mr Smith had moved from Shropshire, and taken Ilsworth
Hall in a neighbouring county. This he had done, as far as could be
ascertained, simply because he had a poor opinion of Shropshire