The doctor's astonishment was turned into annoyance by the spectacle of his shattered wicket. A vague clatter of applause broke out. The wicket-keeper stooped down to pick up the bails. The fielders relaxed and flopped down on the grass. They seemed to have discovered suddenly that it was a hot afternoon, and that cricket was, after all, a comparatively strenuous game. One of the umpires, a sly, nasty fellow, screwed up his eyes and looked hard at the doctor as the latter passed him, walking with the slow, meditative gait of the bowled out, and swinging his gloves. There was nothing to do but to glare back, and make the umpire feel a worm. The doctor wore an eye-glass, and he succeeded admirably. His irritation boiled over and produced a sense of ungovernable, childish rage. Somehow, he had not been able to make any runs this season, and his bowling average was all to pieces. He began to think he ought to give up cricket. He was getting[Pg 3] past the age when a man can accept reverses in the spirit of the game, and he was sick and tired of seeing his name every week in the Great Wymering Gazette as having been dismissed for a "mere handful."
Gregg failed to suppress an abrupt snigger. He lit a cigarette to cover his confusion. Once more he envisaged that flying figure on the horizon. "At the rate he was going," he remarked, steadily, "and barring accidents, I should say he's reached London by now."
CHAPTER III THE SKY PATROL ORGANIZES
"That's all right," said his railroads friends encouragingly. "She's just run back on the other switch to take up a couple more cars. She'll go ahead all right presently."
"Good gracious, do they want to wear the track and wheels and injines clean out?" grumbled the Deacon. "No wonder they're all out o' order. If I jammed my wagon back and forrard this way it wouldn't last a month. No wonder war-taxes are high, with everybody doin' all they kin to waste and destroy property. I've a great mind to write to Gen. Rosecrans or President Lincoln callin' attention to the way their hired men monkey around, and waste time, and don't accomplish nothin'."
"Ye imp o' the divil—ye unblest scab of an odmahoun. Oi'll brake ivery bone av yer body for goin' around by noights in thim wake-duds, scaring daysint folks out av their siven sinses."
"Henry Joslyn, sir."
"Well, I'll bet a hatful o' red apples," said Si, "that them was guerrillas that we saw, and they're makin' for this train. The rebels in Nashville somehow got information to 'em about it."
"You know," Greta said, "you're cute."
Naomi had submitted, as she always submitted, and after a while obedience was made easy. In August she realised that she was going to have a child and any conscientious desires which might have twinged her at the sight of Mrs. Backfield's seaming face and bending shoulders, were lost in the preoccupations of her own condition.
The walk home was dreary, for Rose and Handshut misunderstood each other, and yet loved each other too. She was silent, almost shamefaced, and he was a little disgusted with her—he felt that she had misled him, and in his soreness added "willingly."
維特沃斯夏日哈木智慧地磅，礦區地磅，青海地磅！
江蘇港口150噸地磅汽車衡案例現場
河北邯鄲市峰峰礦區2台無人值守稱重地磅安裝現場
