The Hampdenshire Wonder | Page 4

he said to me. The train was running into
Wenderby; he was preparing to get out; he leaned forward, his fingers

on the handle of the door.
I was embarrassed. Why had I been singled out by the child? I had
taken no part in the recent interjectory conversation. Was this a
consequence of the notice that had been paid to me?
"I?" I stammered, and then reverted to the rubicund man's original
phrase. "It--it was certainly a very remarkable child," I said.
The rubicund man nodded and pursed his lips. "Very," he muttered as
he alighted. "Very remarkable. Well, good day to you."
I returned to my book, and was surprised to find that my index finger
was still marking the place at which I had been interrupted some fifteen
minutes before. My arm felt stiff and cramped.
I read "... this absence of any tangible reason is the more striking the
deeper our freedom goes."
CHAPTER II.
NOTES FOR A BIOGRAPHY OF GINGER STOTT
I
GINGER STOTT is a name that was once as well known as any, in
England. Stott has been the subject of leading articles in every daily
paper; his life has been written by an able journalist who interviewed
Stott himself, during ten crowded minutes, and filled three hundred
pages with details, seventy per cent, of which were taken from the
journals, and the remainder supplied by a brilliant imagination. Ten
years ago Ginger Stott was on a pinnacle, there was a Stott vogue. You
found his name at the bottom of signed articles written by members of
the editorial staff; you bought Stott collars, although Stott himself did
not wear collars; there was a Stott waltz, which is occasionally
hummed by clerks, and whistled by errand-boys to this day; there was a
periodical which lived for ten months, entitled Ginger Stott's Weekly;
in brief, during one summer there was a Stott apotheosis.

But that was ten years ago, and the rising generation has almost
forgotten the once well-known name. One rarely sees him mentioned in
the morning paper now, and then it is but the briefest reference; some
such note as this, "Pickering was at the top of his form, recalling the
finest achievements of Ginger Stott at his best," or "Flack is a
magnificent find for Kent: he promises to completely surpass the
historic feats of Ginger Stott." These journalistic superlatives only
irritate those who remember the performances referred to. We who
watched the man's career know that Pickering and Flack are but tyros
compared to Stott; we know that none of his successors has challenged
comparison with him. He was a meteor that blazed across the sky, and
if he ever has a true successor, such stars as Pickering and Flack will
shine pale and dim in comparison.
It makes one feel suddenly old to recall that great matinee at the
Lyceum, given for Ginger Stott's benefit after he met with his accident.
In ten years so many great figures in that world have died or fallen into
obscurity. I can count on my fingers the number of those who were
then, and are still, in the forefront of popularity. Of the others, poor
Captain Wallis, for instance, is dead--and no modern writer, in my
opinion, can equal the brilliant descriptiveness of Wallis's articles in the
Daily Post. Bobby Maisefield, again,' Stott's colleague, is a martyr to
rheumatism, and keeps a shop in Ailesworth, the scene of so many of
his triumphs. What a list one might make, but how uselessly. It is
enough to note how many names have dropped out, how many others
are the names of those we now speak of as veterans. In ten years! It
certainly makes one feel old.
II
No apology is needed for telling again the story of Stott's career.
Certain details will still be familiar, it is true, the historic details that
can never be forgotten while cricket holds place as our national game.
But there are many facts of Stott's life familiar to me, which have never
been made public property. If I must repeat that which is known, I can
give the known a new setting; perhaps a new value.
He came of mixed races. His mother was pure Welsh, his father a

Yorkshire collier; but when Ginger was nine years old his father died,
and Mrs. Stott came to live in Ailesworth where she had immigrant
relations, and it was there that she set up the little paper-shop, the
business by which she maintained herself and her boy. That shop is still
in existence, and the name has not been altered. You may find it in the
little street that runs off the market place, going down towards the
Borstal Institution.
There are many people alive in Ailesworth to-day who can remember