The Gold Bat | Page 3

you had against you today."
"Have you ever known the school play well on the second day of
term?" asked Clowes. "The forwards always play as if the whole thing
bored them to death."
"It wasn't the forwards that mattered so much," said Trevor. "They'll
shake down all right after a few matches. A little running and passing
will put them right."
"Let's hope so," Paget observed, "or we might as well scratch to Ripton
at once. There's a jolly sight too much of the mince-pie and Christmas
pudding about their play at present." There was a pause. Then Paget
brought out the question towards which he had been moving all the
time.
"What do you think of Rand-Brown?" he asked.
It was pretty clear by the way he spoke what he thought of that player
himself, but in discussing with a football captain the capabilities of the
various members of his team, it is best to avoid a too positive statement
one way or the other before one has heard his views on the subject. And
Paget was one of those people who like to know the opinions of others
before committing themselves.
Clowes, on the other hand, was in the habit of forming his views on his
own account, and expressing them. If people agreed with them, well
and good: it afforded strong presumptive evidence of their sanity. If
they disagreed, it was unfortunate, but he was not going to alter his
opinions for that, unless convinced at great length that they were
unsound. He summed things up, and gave you the result. You could
take it or leave it, as you preferred.
"I thought he was bad," said Clowes.
"Bad!" exclaimed Trevor, "he was a disgrace. One can understand a
chap having his off-days at any game, but one doesn't expect a man in

the Wrykyn first to funk. He mucked five out of every six passes I gave
him, too, and the ball wasn't a bit slippery. Still, I shouldn't mind that
so much if he had only gone for his man properly. It isn't being out of
practice that makes you funk. And even when he did have a try at you,
Paget, he always went high."
"That," said Clowes thoughtfully, "would seem to show that he was
game."
Nobody so much as smiled. Nobody ever did smile at Clowes' essays in
wit, perhaps because of the solemn, almost sad, tone of voice in which
he delivered them. He was tall and dark and thin, and had a pensive eye,
which encouraged the more soulful of his female relatives to entertain
hopes that he would some day take orders.
"Well," said Paget, relieved at finding that he did not stand alone in his
views on Rand-Brown's performance, "I must say I thought he was
awfully bad myself."
"I shall try somebody else next match," said Trevor. "It'll be rather hard,
though. The man one would naturally put in, Bryce, left at Christmas,
worse luck."
Bryce was the other wing three-quarter of the second fifteen.
"Isn't there anybody in the third?" asked Paget.
"Barry," said Clowes briefly.
"Clowes thinks Barry's good," explained Trevor.
"He is good," said Clowes. "I admit he's small, but he can tackle."
"The question is, would he be any good in the first? A chap might do
jolly well for the third, and still not be worth trying for the first."
"I don't remember much about Barry," said Paget, "except being
collared by him when we played Seymour's last year in the final. I
certainly came away with a sort of impression that he could tackle. I

thought he marked me jolly well."
"There you are, then," said Clowes. "A year ago Barry could tackle
Paget. There's no reason for supposing that he's fallen off since then.
We've seen that Rand-Brown can't tackle Paget. Ergo, Barry is better
worth playing for the team than Rand-Brown. Q.E.D."
"All right, then," replied Trevor. "There can't be any harm in trying him.
We'll have another scratch game on Thursday. Will you be here then,
Paget?"
"Oh, yes. I'm stopping till Saturday."
"Good man. Then we shall be able to see how he does against you. I
wish you hadn't left, though, by Jove. We should have had Ripton on
toast, the same as last term."
Wrykyn played five schools, but six school matches. The school that
they played twice in the season was Ripton. To win one Ripton match
meant that, however many losses it might have sustained in the other
matches, the school had had, at any rate, a passable season. To win two
Ripton matches in the same year was almost unheard of. This year there
had seemed every likelihood of it. The match before Christmas on the
Ripton ground had resulted in a win