he received an invitation from one of his many uncles to spend a
weekend at his house, he decided to accept it.

This uncle was a man of wealth. After winning two fortunes on the Stock
Exchange and losing them both, he had at length amassed a third, with
which he retired in triumph to the country, leaving Throgmorton Street
to exist as best it could without him. He had bought a 'show-place' at
a village which lay twenty miles by rail to the east of Beckford, and
it had always been Norris's wish to see this show-place, a house which
was said to combine the hoariest of antiquity with a variety of modern
comforts.

Merely to pay a flying visit there would be good. But his uncle held
out an additional attraction. If Norris could catch the one-forty from
Horton, he would arrive just in time to take part in a cricket match,
that day being the day of the annual encounter with the neighbouring
village of Pudford. The rector of Pudford, the opposition captain, so
wrote Norris's uncle, had by underhand means lured down three really
decent players from Oxford--not Blues, but almost--who had come to the
village ostensibly to read classics with him as their coach, but in
reality for the sole purpose of snatching from Little Bindlebury (his
own village) the laurels they had so nobly earned the year before. He
had heard that Norris was captaining the Beckford team this year, and
had an average of thirty-eight point nought three two, so would he come
and make thirty-eight point nought three two for Little Bindlebury?

'This,' thought Norris, 'is Fame. This is where I spread myself. I must
be in this at any price.'

He showed the letter to Baker.