and Reeves was a victim to the
first straight ball. Burgess had to hit because it was the only game
he knew; but he himself must simply stay in.

The hands of the clock seemed to have stopped. Then suddenly he heard
the umpire say "Last over," and he settled down to keep those six
balls out of his wicket.

The lob bowler had taken himself off, and the Oxford Authentic had
gone on, fast left-hand.

The first ball was short and wide of the off-stump. Mike let it alone.
Number two: yorker. Got him! Three: straight half-volley. Mike played
it back to the bowler. Four: beat him, and missed the wicket by an
inch. Five: another yorker. Down on it again in the old familiar way.

All was well. The match was a draw now whatever happened to him. He
hit out, almost at a venture, at the last ball, and mid-off, jumping,
just failed to reach it. It hummed over his head, and ran like a
streak along the turf and up the bank, and a great howl of delight
went up from the school as the umpire took off the bails.

Mike walked away from the wickets with Joe and the wicket-keeper.

"I'm sorry about your nose, Joe," said the wicket-keeper in tones of
grave solicitude.

"What's wrong with it?"

"At present," said the wicket-keeper, "nothing. But in a few years I'm
afraid it's going to be put badly out of joint."

CHAPTER XIV

A SLIGHT IMBROGLIO

Mike got his third eleven colours after the M.C.C. match. As he had
made twenty-three not out in a crisis in a first eleven match, this
may not seem an excessive reward. But it was all that he expected. One
had to take the rungs of the ladder singly at Wrykyn. First one was
given one's third eleven cap. That meant, "You are a promising man,
and we have our eye on you." Then came the second colours. They might
mean anything from "Well, here you are. You won't get any higher, so
you may as well have the thing now," to "This is just to show that we
still have our eye on you."

Mike was a certainty now for the second. But it needed more than one
performance to secure the first cap.

"I told you so," said Wyatt, naturally, to Burgess after the match.

"He's not bad," said Burgess. "I'll give him another shot."

But Burgess, as has been pointed out, was not a person who ever became
gushing with enthusiasm.

* * * * *

So Wilkins, of the School House, who had played twice for the first
eleven, dropped down into the second, as many a good man had don