“Oh, well,” said Mr. Wedderburn.
“I’m not going to have him playing in the cricket match, anyhow,” pursued Mr. Tallboy, viciously. “Last year he wore white suede shoes with crocodile vamps, and an incredible blazer with Old Borstalian colours.”
Mr. Wedderburn looked up, rather startled.
“Oh, but you’re not going to leave him out? He’s quite a good bat and very nippy on the ball in the field.”
“We can do without him,” said Mr. Tallboy, firmly. Mr. Wedderburn said no more.
There was no regular cricket eleven at Pym’s, but every summer a scratch team was got together to play a couple of matches, the selection being entrusted to Mr. Tallboy, who was energetic and had once carried his bat out for 52 against Sopo. He was supposed to submit a list of cricketers for Mr. Hankin’s final decision, but Mr. Hankin seldom questioned his selection, for the sufficient reason that there were seldom more than eleven candidates available to choose from. The important point was that Mr. Hankin should bat third, and field at mid-on. If these points were taken note of, he raised no further objections.
Mr. Tallboy pulled out a list.
“Ingleby,” he said, “and Garrett. Barrow. Adcock. Pinchley. Hankin. Myself. Gregory can’t play; he’s going away for the week-end, so we’d better have McAllister. And we can’t very well leave out Miller. I wish we could, but he’s a Director. Yourself.”
“Leave me out,” said Mr. Wedderburn. “I haven’t touched a bat since last year and I didn’t put up much of a show then.”
“We’ve nobody else who can bowl slow spinners,” said Mr. Tallboy. “I’ll put you down No. 11.”
“All right,” said Mr. Wedderburn, gratified by the recognition accorded to his bowling, but irrationally provoked by being put down No. 11. He had expected his companion to say, “Oh, but that was just a fluke,” and send him in higher up the list. “How about a wicket-keeper? Grayson says he won’t do it again, not after getting his front tooth knocked out last year. He seems to have got the wind up properly.”
“We’ll make Haagedorn do it. He’s got hands like a pair of hams. Who else? Oh, that chap in the printing-Beeseley-he’s not much good with a bat, but we can rely on him for a few straight balls.”
“What about that new fellow in the Copy Department? Bredon? He’s a public school man. Is he any good?”
“Might be. He’s a bit ancient, though. We’ve got two aged stiffs already in Hankin and Miller.”
“Aged stiff be blowed. That chap can move, I’ve seen him do it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he could show us a bit of style.”
“Well, I’ll find out. If he’s any good, we’ll stick him in instead of Pinchley.”
“Pinchley can swipe ’em up,” said Mr. Wedderburn.
“He never does anything but swipe. He’s jam for the fielders. He gave them about ten chances last year and was caught both innings.”
Mr. Wedderburn agreed that this was so.
“But he’ll be awfully hurt if he’s left out,” he said.
“I’ll ask about Bredon,” said Mr. Tallboy.
He sought out that gentleman, who was, for once, in his own room, singing soup-slogans to himself.
A meal begun with Blagg’s Tomato
Softens every husband’s heart-oh!
Hubbies hold those wives most dear
Who offer them Blagg’s Turtle Clear.
Fit for an Alderman-serve it up quick-
Rum-ti-ty, tum-ti-ty, Blagg’s Turtle Thick.
“Rum-ti-ty, tum-ti-ty,” said Mr. Bredon. “Hullo, Tallboy, what’s the matter? Don’t say Nutrax has developed any more innuendos.”
“Do you play cricket?”
“Well, I used to play for-” Mr. Bredon coughed; he had been about to say, “for Oxford,” but remembered in time that these statements could be checked. “I’ve played a good deal of country-house cricket in the old days. But I’m rapidly qualifying to be called a Veteran. Why?”
“I’ve got to scrape up an eleven for a match against Brotherhood’s. We play one every year. They always beat us, of course, because they have their own playing-fields and play together regularly, but Pym likes it to be done. He thinks it fosters fellow-feeling between client and agent and all that sort of thing.”
“Oh! when does it come off?”
“Saturday fortnight.”
“I daresay I might keep my end up for a bit, if you can’t get anybody better.
“You anything of a bowler?”
“Nothing.”
“Better with the willow than the leather, eh?”
Mr. Bredon, wincing a little at this picturesqueness, admitted that, if he was anything, he was a batsman.
“Right. You wouldn’t care to open the ball with Ingleby, I suppose?”
“I’d rather not. Put me down somewhere near the tail.”
Tallboy nodded.
“Just as you like.”
“Who captains this Eleven?”
“Well, I do, as a rule. At least, we always ask Hankin or Miller, just out of compliment, but they generally decline with thanks. Well, righty-ho; I’ll just buzz round and see that the others are O.K.”
The selected team went up on the office notice-board at lunch-time. At ten minutes past two, the trouble began with Mr. McAllister.
“I observe,” said he, making a dour appearance in Mr. Tallboy’s room, “that ye’re no askin’ Smayle to play for ye, and I’m thinkin’ it’ll be a wee bit awkward for me if I play and he does not. Workin’ in his room all day and under his orders, it will make my poseetion not just so very comfortable.”
“Position in the office has nothing to do with playing cricket,” said Mr. Tallboy.
“Ay, imph’m, that’s so. But I just do not care for it. So ye’ll oblige me by leavin’ my name oot.”
“Just as you like,” said Tallboy, annoyed. He struck Mr. McAllister’s name off the list, and substituted that of Mr. Pinchley. The next defection was that of Mr. Adcock, a stolid youth from the Voucher Department. He inconsiderately fell off a step-ladder in his own home, while assisting his mother to hang a picture, and broke the small bone of his leg.
In this extremity, Mr. Tallboy found himself compelled to go and eat humble pie to Mr. Smayle, and request him to play after all. But Mr. Smayle had been hurt in his feelings by being omitted from the first list, and showed no eagerness to oblige.
Mr. Tallboy, who was, indeed, a little ashamed of himself, endeavoured to gloss the matter over by making it appear that his real object in leaving out Mr. Smayle had been to make room for Mr. Bredon, who had been to Oxford and was sure to play well. But Mr. Smayle was not deceived by this specious reasoning.
“If you had come to me in the first instance,” he complained, “and put the matter to me in a friendly way, I should say nothing about it. I like Mr. Bredon, and I appreciate that he has had advantages that I haven’t had. He’s a very gentlemanly fellow, and I should be happy to make way for him. But I do not care for having things done behind my back in a hole-and-corner fashion.”
If Mr. Tallboy had said at this point, “Look here, Smayle, I’m sorry; I was rather out of temper at the time over that little dust-up we had, and I apologize”-then Mr. Smayle, who was really an amiable creature enough, would have given way and done anything that was required of him. But Mr. Tallboy chose to take a lofty tone. He said:
“Come, come, Smayle. You’re not Jack Hobbs, you know.”
Even this might have passed over with Mr. Smayle’s ready admission that he was not England ’s premier batsman, had not Mr. Tallboy been unhappily inspired to say:
“Of course, I don’t know about you, but I have always been accustomed to have these things settled by whoever was appointed to select the team, and to play or not, according as I was put down.”
“Oh, yes,” retorted Mr. Smayle, caught on his sensitive point, “you would say that. I am quite aware, Tallboy, that I never was at a public school, but that is no reason why I shouldn’t be treated with ordinary, common courtesy. And from those who have been to real public schools, I get it, what’s more. You may think a lot of Dumbleton, but it isn’t what I call a public school.”