Jacksons played regularly in first-class cricket, and there was always
keen competition among their brothers and sisters for the copy of the
_Sportsman_ which was to be found on the hall table with the
letters. Whoever got it usually gloated over it in silence till urged
wrathfully by the multitude to let them know what had happened; when
it would appear that Joe had notched his seventh century, or that
Reggie had been run out when he was just getting set, or, as sometimes
occurred, that that ass Frank had dropped Fry or Hayward in the slips
before he had scored, with the result that the spared expert had made
a couple of hundred and was still going strong.

In such a case the criticisms of the family circle, particularly of
the smaller Jackson sisters, were so breezy and unrestrained that Mrs.
Jackson generally felt it necessary to apply the closure. Indeed,
Marjory Jackson, aged fourteen, had on three several occasions been
fined pudding at lunch for her caustic comments on the batting of her
brother Reggie in important fixtures. Cricket was a tradition in the
family, and the ladies, unable to their sorrow to play the game
themselves, were resolved that it should not be their fault if the
standard was not kept up.

On this particular morning silence reigned. A deep gasp from some
small Jackson, wrestling with bread-and-milk, and an occasional remark
from Mr. Jackson on the letters he was reading, alone broke it.

"Mike's late again," said Mrs. Jackson plaintively, at last.

"He's getting up," said Marjory. "I went in to see what he was doing,
and he was asleep. So," she added with a satanic chuckle, "I squeezed
a sponge over him. He swallowed an awful lot, and then he woke up, and