have met. In the ten years of my cricket life I have met many.
Let us divide them into classes. We will take the old-time division; we will divide them into four—those that are of a slow pace, those that are of a medium pace, those that are fast, and those semimoribund trundlers, the dealers in lobs.
Having myself started in my early days with the firm conviction that this old game of cricket was the best game for boys and men of moderate years that the ingenuity of generations had invented, I became also convinced that to be a great bowler was the highest pinnacle of fame, and at the same time of usefulness, that a cricketer could hope to rest on.
The work, without doubt, is hard, the labour of the day strenuous, but the pleasure of bowling a length with the wicket a bit in your favour, with a side that are trying to field, and not loafing as "little mounds of earth or waxen figures in a third-rate tailor's shop," is a goodly thing, a thing to dream of. And this craft of bowling is so sure, so certain. A great batsman may make a mistake, even on the Oval in the height of summer, even on the Oval in the height of perfection—and all those that have played there know the miraculous opportunities for rungetting this ground affords—he may make a mistake, let us say, bowled Richardson, 0! Well, for the day he is done—up to now of no use to his side, of no use to himself. Now, take the great bowler on a wicket of this excellence, or of any other. He can make a mistake, drop a slower one a bit too short, overpitch
