they might give us china ones." This lad never proved good enough for first-class cricket, so please do not father the tale on to any prominent run-getter.
A certain amateur of a team staying in a country house, who was a bit of a wag, by the way, much annoyed the rather pompous host by addressing the family butler as "waiter." The skipper of the team remonstrated, but with no result. At breakfast the cricketer in question never seemed able to get the right dish; if he meant eggs, he received kidneys, and so forth. This was because, the menu being in French, he used to point at random to some item, not wishing to betray his ignorance of the language. On the last morning of the week, when the usual bill of fare was brought to him, he retorted in stentorian accents, "Rats to you, waiter; I'll fetch it for myself."
I have had so many happy years of comradeship with "Plum" Warner that he must forgive me if I spin a yarn or two about him. I was in the habit of taking an eleven each year against Mr. Charles Goschen's team, an ideal country-house cricket match. To my dismay, for I was always anxious to win, we were once decidedly weak in bowling, and we knew Warner was playing for Mr. Charles Goschen's eleven. So after grave consultation we decided that, as we were never likely to bowl him out by fair means, we would do it by foul. We pressed on him to accept an invitation to stay overnight before the match. Now, my old friend is most abstemious, but
