half an hour in Mr. D--'s shop (which contains
new books as well as old) would correct his sense of the impressiveness of
the feat. Indeed, I read a dawning trouble in the glance he cast around
the shelves. "It takes a fellow's breath away," he confessed. "Such a
heap of them! But then I've never been to the British Museum."

"Then," said I, "you must be employing researchers for the book you are
writing."

"What?" he protested. "_Me_ writing a book? Not likely!"

"An article for some magazine, then?"

"Not a line."

"Well, at least you have been standing for your photograph, to illustrate
some book on Cricket that another fellow is writing."

He laughed.

"You have me there. Yes, I've been photographed in the act of bowling--
'Before' and 'After': quite like Somebody's Hair Restorer."

"Well," said I, "and I wish you had contributed to the letterpress, too.
For the wonder to me is, not that you cricketers write books (for all the
world wants to read them), but that you do it so prodigiously well."

"Oh," said he, "you mean Ranji! But he's a terror."

"I was thinking of him, of course; but of others as well. Here, for
instance, is a book I have just bought, or rather an instalment of one:
_The Encyclopaedia of Sport_, edited by the Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire,
Mr. Hedley Peek, and Mr. Aflalo, published by Messrs. Lawrence and Bullen:
Part IV., CHA to CRO. I turn to the article on Cricket, and am referred
'for all questions connected with fast bowling, and for many questions
associated with medium and slow' to 'the following paper by Tom
Richardson.'"

"Tom Richardson ought to know," put in Grayson.

"Good Heavens!" said I, "I am not disputing that! But I remember Ruskin's
insisting--I think in _Sesame and Lilies_--that no true artist ever talks
much of his art. The greatest are silent. 'The moment,' says Ruskin,
'a man can really do his work he becomes speechless about it. All words
become idle to him--all theories.' And he goes on to ask, in his
vivacious way, 'Does a bird theorise about building its nest?'
Well, as to that one cannot be sure. But I take it we may call Richardson
a true artist?"

"Certainly we may."

"And allow that he can really do his work?"

"Rather!"

"Then it seems to me that Ruskin's rule may apply to other arts, but not
to Cricket. For here is Richardson not only talking about fast bowling,
but expressing himself with signal ease and precision. Listen to th