onner!" Daddy looked out in the gloom and saw green fields and
golden sunlight, and great sportsmen long gone to their rest. "Bonner
was a wonderful man. He was a giant in size."

"As big as you, Daddy?"

Daddy seized his elder boy and shook him playfully. "I heard what you
said to Miss Cregan the other day. When she asked you what an acre was
you said 'About the size of Daddy.'"

Both boys gurgled.

"But Bonner was five inches taller than I. He was a giant, I tell you."

"Did nobody kill him?"

"No, no, Dimples. Not a story-book giant. But a great, strong man. He
had a splendid figure and blue eyes and a golden beard, and altogether he
was the finest man I have ever seen--except perhaps one."

"Who was the one, Daddy?"

"Well, it was the Emperor Frederick of Germany."

"A Jarman!" cried Dimples, in horror.

"Yes, a German. Mind you, boys, a man may be a very noble man and be a
German--though what has become of the noble ones these last three years
is more than I can guess. But Frederick was noble and good, as you could
see on his face. How he ever came to be the father of such a blasphemous
braggart"--Daddy sank into reverie.

"Bonner, Daddy!" said Laddie, and Daddy came back from politics with a
start.

"Oh, yes, Bonner. Bonner in white flannels on the green sward with an
English June sun upon him. That was a picture of a man! But you asked
me about the catch. It was in a test match at the Oval--England against
Australia. Bonner said before he went in that he would hit Alfred Shaw
into the next county, and he set out to do it. Shaw, as I have told you,
could keep a very good length, so for some time Bonner could not get the
ball he wanted, but at last he saw his chance, and he jumped out and hit
that ball the most awful ker-wallop that ever was seen in a
cricket-field."

"Oo!" from both boys: and then, "Did it go into the next county, Daddy?"
from Dimples.

"Well, I'm telling you!" said Daddy, who was always testy when one of his
stories was interrupted. "Bonner thought he had made the ball a half-
volley--that is the best ball to hit--but Shaw had deceived him and the
ball was really on the short side. So when Bonner hit it, up and up it
went, until it looked as if it were going out of sight into the sky."

"Oo!"

"At first everybody thought it was going far outside the ground. But
soon they saw that all the giant's strength had been wasted in hitting
the ball so high, and th