"I'm not breaking down," said Mike indignantly.
"All right. I thought you weren't. Anyhow, you're better off than I am."
"An extra's nothing much," said Mike.
"It is when it happens to come on the same day as the M.C.C. match."
"Oh, by Jove! I forgot. That's next Wednesday, isn't it? You won't be able to play!"
"No."
"I say, what rot!"
"It is, rather. Still, nobody can say I didn't ask for it. If one goes out of one's way to beg and beseech the Old Man to put one in extra, it would be a little rough on him to curse him when he does it."
"I should be awfully sick, if it were me."
"Well, it isn't you, so you're all right. You'll probably get my place in the team."
Mike smiled dutifully at what he supposed to be a humorous sally.
"Or, rather, one of the places," continued Wyatt, who seemed to be sufficiently in earnest. "They'll put a bowler in instead of me. Probably Druce. But there'll be several vacancies. Let's see. Me. Adams. Ashe. Any more? No, that's the lot. I should think they'd give you a chance."
"You needn't rot," said Mike uncomfortably. He had his day-dreams, like everybody else, and they always took the form of playing for the first eleven (and, incidentally, making a century in record time). To have to listen while the subject was talked about lightly made him hot and prickly all over.
"I'm not rotting," said Wyatt seriously, "I'll suggest it to Burgess to-night."
"You don't think there's any chance of it, really, do you?" said Mike awkwardly.
"I don't see why not? Buck up in the scratch game this afternoon. Fielding especially. Burgess is simply mad on fielding. I don't blame him either, especially as he's a bowler himself. He'd shove a man into the
