THE MALTESE CAT
in the world; Powell had Shikast, a little grey rat with no pedigree and no manners outside polo; Macnamara mounted Bamboo, the largest of the team; and Hughes Who 's Who, alias The Animal. He was supposed to have Australian blood in his veins, but he looked like a clothes-horse, and you could whack his legs with an iron crow-bar without hurting him.
They went out to meet the very flower of the Archangels' team; and when Who 's Who saw their elegantly booted legs and their beautiful satin skins, he grinned a grin through his light, well-worn bridle.
"My word!" said Who 's Who. "We must give 'em a little football. These gentlemen need a rubbing down."
"No biting," said The Maltese Cat, warningly; for once or twice in his career Who 's Who had been known to forget himself in that way.
"Who said anything about biting? I 'm not playing tiddly-winks. I 'm playing the game."
The Archangels came down like a wolf on the fold, for they were tired of football, and they wanted polo. They got it more and more. Just after the game began, Lutyens hit a ball that was coming towards him rapidly, and it rolled in the air, as a ball sometimes will, with the whirl of a frightened partridge. Shikast heard, but could not see it for the minute, though he looked everywhere and up into the air as The Maltese Cat had taught him. When he saw it ahead and overhead he went forward with Powell as fast as he could put foot to ground. It was then that Powell, a quiet and level-headed man, as a rule, became inspired, and played
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