golden quality on a cricket field, the golden quality of life, stood uppermost in my mind, I cannot say, but to this day, as often as I think on the game, there always arises the short, thick-set figure of poor Johnny Briggs.
Buffoon, perhaps, at times, but never with an obnoxious buffoonery. And what a bowler! The ball left his hand with a finger flick that you could hear in the pavilion, and here was every known variety of flight: three or four short, half walking, half running strides, and the ball was at you, spinning like a top; first a balloon of a ball that would drop much farther off than you thought, a lower one just on the same spot, both breaking away like smoke; then another, with nothing on, straight at the sticks; and then you saw the arm come round a shade faster, and, if you weren't on the watch, you found you had struck a snag in the form of a really fast yorker, bowled at a considerably greater pace than you have ever received one from either Peel or Rhodes. Poor Johnny! I have no space to dilate further on your wonderful gift of bowling with this indefinite "you." In conclusion, as this chapter seems rapidly to be casting itself into the mould of personal reminiscence, I will relate my last two meetings with you.
We were playing at Hastings in the Week.
"W. G." was in command. It was my lucky day, having made 50 or so by blind slogging, and the liberal help of a sluggish field. The Doctor suggested you should try the Chapel end. I took 28 off the
