our last man in was quick.

"Now, Ned!" calls out our captain, coming up to the tent; "look sharp
in."

Ned coolly sat down on the bench in our tent and proceeded to put on a
pad.

"Never mind about that! there's no time," said our captain impatiently,
"and they are bowling slow."

"Oh, it won't take a minute," says Ned, discovering he had been putting
the pad on upside down, and proceeding to undo it. We stood round in
feverish impatience, and the minute consumed in putting on those
miserable leg-fenders seemed like a year.

Ned himself, however, did not seem in the least flurried by our
excitement.

"Pity they don't make these things fasten with springs instead of
straps," he observed, by way of genial conversation.

Oh, how we chafed and fumed!

"_Will_ you look sharp, if you're going to play at all?" howls our
captain.

"All _right_, old chap; I can't be quicker than I am; where are the
gloves?"

The gloves are brought like lightning, but not like lightning put on.
No, the india-rubber gauntlets must needs be drawn with the greatest
care and deliberation over his fingers, and even then require a good
deal of shifting to render them comfortable. Then he was actually (I
believe) going to take them off in order to roll up his shirt sleeves,
had not two of us performed that office for him with a rapidity which
astonished him.

"Upon my word, this is too bad," says our captain, flinging down the bat
he was holding, and stamping with vexation. "We might as well give the
whole thing up!"

"I'm awfully sorry," drawled Ned, in an injured tone; "but how could I
help it? I'm ready now."

"Ready! I should hope you were. Off you cut now; it only wants five
minutes to the time."

He starts to go, but turns before he has well left us, and says--

"Oh, I say, Jim, lend us your bat, will you? This one is sprung, and
one of the--"

"Here you are," we shout, running to him with a dozen bats at
once--"only look sharp."

"I only want one," he says. "Let me see this; no, this will do.
Thanks, old man," and off he saunters again.

The other side is lying comfortably on the grass, very well satisfied at
the delay which every moment adds to their chance of victory. What
centuries Ned appears to be taking in strolling up to the wickets!

"I wish I was behind him with a red-hot poker," says one; "I'd make him
trot!"

"Not a bit of it," growls our captain; "Ned would want more than that to
start him."