, and had been
caught at short slip off his second ball.

That put the finishing touch on the panic. Stone, Robinson, and the
others, all quite decent punishing batsmen when their nerves allowed
them to play their own game, crawled to the wickets, declined to hit out
at anything, and were clean bowled, several of them, playing back to
half volleys. Adair did not suffer from panic, but his batting was not
equal to his bowling, and he had fallen after hitting one four. Seven
wickets were down for thirty when Psmith went in.

Psmith had always disclaimed any pretensions to batting skill, but he
was undoubtedly the right man for a crisis like this. He had an enormous
reach, and he used it. Three consecutive balls from Bruce he turned into
full tosses and swept to the leg boundary, and, assisted by Barnes, who
had been sitting on the splice in his usual manner, he raised the total
to seventy-one before being yorked, with his score at thirty-five. Ten
minutes later the innings was over, with Barnes not out sixteen, for
seventy-nine.

Wrykyn had then gone in, lost Strachan for twenty before lunch, and
finally completed their innings at a quarter to four for a hundred and
thirty-one.

This was better than Sedleigh had expected. At least eight of the team
had looked forward dismally to an afternoon's leather hunting. But Adair
and Psmith, helped by the wicket, had never been easy, especially
Psmith, who had taken six wickets, his slows playing havoc with
the tail.

It would be too much to say that Sedleigh had any hope of pulling the
game out of the fire; but it was a comfort, they felt, at any rate,
having another knock. As is usual at this stage of a match, their
nervousness had vanished, and they felt capable of better things than in
the first innings.

It was on Mike's suggestion that Psmith and he went in first. Mike knew
the limitations of the Wrykyn bowling, and he was convinced that, if
they could knock Bruce off, it might be possible to rattle up a score
sufficient to give them the game, always provided Wrykyn collapsed in
the second innings. And it seemed to Mike that the wicket would be so
bad then that they easily might.

So he and Psmith had gone in at four o'clock to hit. And they had hit.
The deficit had been wiped off, all but a dozen runs, when Psmith was
bowled, and by that time Mike was set and in his best vein. He treated
all the bowlers alike. And when Stone came in, restored to his proper
frame of