Baker suggested gently that if anybody was going to be fagged out at
the end of the day, it would in all probability be the Beckford
bowlers, and not a man who, as he was careful to point out, had run up
a century a mere three days ago against Yorkshire, and who was
apparently at that moment at the very top of his form.

'Well,' said Norris, 'he might crock himself or anything. Rank bad
policy, I call it. Anybody else?'

Baker resumed his reading. A string of unknowns ended in another
celebrity.

'Blackwell?' said Norris. 'Not O. T. Blackwell?'

'It says A. T. But,' went on Baker, brightening up again, 'they always
get the initials wrong in the papers. Certain to be O. T. By the way, I
suppose you saw that he made eighty-three against Notts the other day?'

Norris tried to comfort himself by observing that Notts couldn't bowl
for toffee.

'Last week, too,' said Baker, 'he made a hundred and forty-six not out
against Malvern for the Gentlemen of Warwickshire. They couldn't get
him out,' he concluded with unction. In spite of the fact that he
himself was playing in the match today, and might under the
circumstances reasonably look forward to a considerable dose of
leather-hunting, the task of announcing the bad news to Norris appeared
to have a most elevating effect on his spirits:

'That's nothing extra special,' said Norris, in answer to the last item