immortal memory we added the discovery that we
were both at the Oval at the memorable match when Crossland rattled Surrey
out like ninepins and the crowd mobbed him, and Key and Roller miraculously
pulled the game out of the fire, our friendship was sealed.

The fine thing about a wrangle on cricket is that there is no bitterness in
it. When you talk about politicians you are always on the brink of bad
temper. When you disagree about the relative merits of W.B. Yeats or
Francis Thompson you are afflicted with scorn for the other's lack of
perception. But you may quarrel about cricketers and love each other all
the time. For example, I am prepared to stand up in a truly Christian
spirit to the bowling of anybody in defence of my belief that--next to him
of the black beard--Lohmann was the most naturally gifted all-round
cricketer there has ever been. What grace of action he had, what an
instinct for the weak spot of his opponent, what a sense for fitting the
action to the moment, above all, what a gallant spirit he played the game
in! And that, after all, is the real test of the great cricketer. It is the
man who brings the spirit of adventure into the game that I want. Of the
Quaifes and the Scottons and the Barlows I have nothing but dreary
memories. They do not mean cricket to me. And even Shrewsbury and Hayward
left me cold. They were too faultily faultless, too icily regular for my
taste. They played cricket not as though it was a game, but as though it
was a proposition in Euclid. And I don't like Euclid.

It was the hearty joyousness that "W.G." shed around him that made him so
dear to us youngsters of all ages. I will admit, if you like, that
Ranjitsinhji at his best was more of a magician with the bat, that Johnny
Briggs made you laugh more with his wonderful antics, that A.P. Lucas had
more finish, Palairet more grace, and so on. But it was the abundance of
the old man with the black beard that was so wonderful. You never came to
the end of him. He was like a generous roast of beef--you could cut and
come again, and go on coming. Other men flitted across our sky like
meteors, but he shone on like the sun in the heavens, and like the sun in
the heavens he scattered largesse over the land. He did not seem so much a
man as an institution, a symbol of summer and all its joys, a sort of
Father Christmas clothed in flannels and sunshine. It did you good merely
to look at him. It made you feel happy to see such a huge