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Daddy departed upon his mission intending to be gruff, and my word, he can be quite gruff when he likes! When he reached the top of the stairs, however, and heard the noise still continue, he walked softly down the landing and peeped in through the half-opened door.

The room was dark save for a night-light. In the dim glimmer he saw a little white-clad figure, slight and supple, taking short steps and swinging its arm in the middle of the room.

“Halloa!” said Daddy.

The white-clad figure turned and ran forward to him.

“Oh, Daddy, how jolly of you to come up!”

Daddy felt that gruffness was not quite so easy as it had seemed.

“Look here! You get into bed!” he said, with the best imitation he could manage.

“Yes, Daddy. But before I go, how is this?” He sprang forward and the arm swung round again in a swift and graceful gesture.

Daddy was a moth-eaten cricketer of sorts, and he took it in with a critical eye.

“Good, Laddie. I like a high action. That’s the real Spofforth swing.”

“Oh, Daddy, come and talk about cricket!” He was pulled on the side of the bed, and the white figure dived between the sheets.

“Yes; tell us about cwicket!” came a cooing voice from the corner. Dimples was sitting up in his cot.

“You naughty boy! I thought one of you was asleep, anyhow. I mustn’t stay. I keep you awake.”

“Who was Popoff?” cried Laddie, clutching at his father’s sleeve. “Was he a very good bowler?”

“Spofforth was the best bowler that ever walked on to a cricket-field. He was the great Australian Bowler and he taught us a great deal.”

“Did he ever kill a dog?” from Dimples.

“No, boy. Why?”

“Because Laddie said there was a bowler so fast that his ball went frue a coat and killed a dog.”

“Oh, that’s an old yarn. I heard that when I was a little boy about some bowler whose name, I think, was Jackson.”

“Was it a big dog?”

“No, no, son; it wasn’t a dog at all.”

“It was a cat,” said Dimples.

“No; I tell you it never happened.”

“But tell us about Spofforth,” cried Laddie. Dimples, with his imaginative mind, usually wandered, while the elder came eagerly back to the point. “Was he very fast?”

“He could be very fast. I have heard cricketers who had played against him say that his yorker–that is a ball which is just short of a full pitch–was the fastest ball in England. I have myself seen his long arm swing round and the wicket go down before ever the batsman had time to ground his bat.”

“Oo!” from both beds.

“He was a tall, thin man, and they called him the Fiend. That means the Devil, you know.”

“And was he the Devil?”

“No, Dimples, no. They called him that because he did such wonderful things with the ball.”

“Can the Devil do wonderful things with a ball?”

Daddy felt that he was propagating devil-worship and hastened to get to safer ground.

“Spofforth taught us how to bowl and Blackham taught us how to keep wicket. When I was young we always had another fielder, called the long- stop, who stood behind the wicket-keeper. I used to be a thick, solid boy, so they put me as long-stop, and the balls used to bounce off me, I remember, as if I had been a mattress.”

Delighted laughter.

“But after Blackham came wicket-keepers had to learn that they were there to stop the ball. Even in good second-class cricket there were no more long-stops. We soon found plenty of good wicket-keeps–like Alfred Lyttelton and MacGregor–but it was Blackham who showed us how. To see Spofforth, all india-rubber and ginger, at one end bowling, and Blackham, with his black beard over the bails waiting for the ball at the other end, was worth living for, I can tell you.”