Shovel it down. I want to be starting for the nets. Quicker, man,
quicker! Don't roll it round your tongue as if it was port. Go for it.
Finished? That's right. Come on.'

Pillingshot had not finished, but Scott so evidently believed that he
had, that it would have been unkind to have mentioned the fact. He
followed the smiter to the nets.

If Pillingshot had passed the earlier part of the afternoon in a
sedentary fashion, he made up for it now. Scott was in rare form, and
Pillingshot noticed with no small interest that, while he invariably
hit Mr Yorke's deliveries a quarter of a mile or so, he never hit two
balls in succession in the same direction. As soon as the panting
fieldsman had sprinted to one side of the football ground and returned
the ball, there was a beautiful, musical _plonk_, and the ball
soared to the very opposite quarter of the field. It was a fine
exhibition of hitting, but Pillingshot felt that he would have enjoyed
it more if he could have watched it from a deck-chair.

'You're coming on as a deep field, young Pillingshot,' said Scott, as
he took off his pads. 'You've got a knack of stopping them with your
stomach, which the best first-class fields never have. You ought to
give lessons at it. Now we'll go and have some tea.'

If Pillingshot had had a more intimate acquaintance with the classics,
he would have observed at this point, '_Timeo Danaos_', and made a
last dash for liberty in the direction of the shop. But he was deceived
by the specious nature of Scott's remark. Visions rose before his eyes
of sitting back in one of Scott's armchairs, watching a fag toasting
muffins, which he would eventually dispatch with languid enjoyment. So