ulders and
wiry, light hair, almost white. He walked well, as if he were used to
running. Altogether a fit-looking sort of man. Even Mike's jaundiced
eye saw that.

As a matter of fact, Adair deserved more than a casual glance. He was
that rare type, the natural leader. Many boys and men, if accident, or
the passage of time, places them in a position where they are expected
to lead, can handle the job without disaster; but that is a very
different thing from being a born leader. Adair was of the sort that
comes to the top by sheer force of character and determination. He
was not naturally clever at work, but he had gone at it with a dogged
resolution which had carried him up the school, and landed him high in
the Sixth. As a cricketer he was almost entirely self-taught. Nature
had given him a good eye, and left the thing at that. Adair's
doggedness had triumphed over her failure to do her work thoroughly.
At the cost of more trouble than most people give to their life-work
he had made himself into a bowler. He read the authorities, and
watched first-class players, and thought the thing out on his own
account, and he divided the art of bowling into three sections. First,
and most important--pitch. Second on the list--break. Third--pace. He
set himself to acquire pitch. He acquired it. Bowling at his own pace
and without any attempt at break, he could now drop the ball on an
envelope seven times out of ten.

Break was a more uncertain quantity. Sometimes he could get it at the
expense of pitch, sometimes at the expense of pace. Some days he could
get all three, and then he was an uncommonly bad man to face on
anything but a plumb wicket.

Running he had acquired in a similar manner. He had nothing
approaching style, but he had twice won the mile and half-mile at the
Sports off elegant runners, who knew all about stride and the correct
timing of the sprints and all the rest of it.

Briefly, he was a worker. He had heart.

A boy of Adair's type is always a force in a school. In a big public
school of six or seven hundred, his influence is felt less; but in a
small school like Sedleigh he is like a tidal wave, sweeping all
before him. There were two hundred boys at Sedleigh, and there was not
one of them in all probability who had not, directly or indirectly,
been influenced by Adair. As a small boy his sphere was not large, but
the effects of his work began to be apparent even then. It is human
nature to want to get