eat to
bowl to him, you're making a fatal error."

"You needn't do a thing. Just sit and watch. I rather fancy this kid's
something special."

* * * * *

Mike put on Wyatt's pads and gloves, borrowed his bat, and walked
round into the net.

"Not in a funk, are you?" asked Wyatt, as he passed.

Mike grinned. The fact was that he had far too good an opinion of
himself to be nervous. An entirely modest person seldom makes a good
batsman. Batting is one of those things which demand first and
foremost a thorough belief in oneself. It need not be aggressive, but
it must be there.

Wyatt and the professional were the bowlers. Mike had seen enough of
Wyatt's bowling to know that it was merely ordinary "slow tosh," and
the professional did not look as difficult as Saunders. The first
half-dozen balls he played carefully. He was on trial, and he meant to
take no risks. Then the professional over-pitched one slightly on the
off. Mike jumped out, and got the full face of the bat on to it. The
ball hit one of the ropes of the net, and nearly broke it.

"How's that?" said Wyatt, with the smile of an impresario on the first
night of a successful piece.

"Not bad," admitted Burgess.

A few moments later he was still more complimentary. He got up and
took a ball himself.

Mike braced himself up as Burgess began his run. This time he was more
than a trifle nervous. The bowling he had had so far had been tame.
This would be the real ordeal.

As the ball left Burgess's hand he began instinctively to shape for a
forward stroke. Then suddenly he realised that the thing was going to
be a yorker, and banged his bat down in the block just as the ball
arrived. An unpleasant sensation as of having been struck by a
thunderbolt was succeeded by a feeling of relief that he had kept the
ball out of his wicket. There are easier things in the world than
stopping a fast yorker.

"Well played," said Burgess.

Mike felt like a successful general receiving the thanks of the
nation.

The fact that Burgess's next ball knocked middle and off stumps out of
the ground saddened him somewhat; but this was the last tragedy that
occurred. He could not do much with the bowling beyond stopping it and
feeling repetitions of the thunderbolt experience, but he kept up his
end; and a short conversation which he had with Burgess at the end of
his innings was full of encouragement to one skilled in reading
between the lin