1932-10-31 — Page 25

CHINA MAIL CHRISTMAS NUMBER.

Touring

Company

AUTHOR'S NOTE. All the characters in this story uré fictiti- ous. It is probably inconceivable that they could relate to any real personages. But, in case anyone thinks they do.. they don't.

If cont of tent nibert Jukestus Pogson at about hair juste sise on F one of the mote roystering of our Christmas card poets had

Christmas Eve and had greeted him with seasonable references to the blazing Yule log and hot jorums of punch. he would, for an absolute certainty, have heard something to his disadvantage.

Christmastide is hot in some places. It was very hot at Sydney. It was damned hot at Sydney Cricket Ground.

And, to judge by the appearance of Gilbert Augustus Pogson, it was hot- test of all in the visiting players" dressing-room..,

To te shown Pogson (especially in the very intimate condi- tions prevailing in the dressing-room) and to be told that he was England's captain would have surprised you, to say the least. He fell about six inches short of your ideal. He was years and years older than any other man of thirty-five. He was already almost completely bald. But his mien was severe and, as partial com- pensation perhaps for his egg-like dome, he favoured a moustache which bristled in full-blown defiance of the modish clip. His eyes were defiant, too, protruding aggressively from an otherwise harmless countenance. As Dandy Stratton was fond of saying," "Gussy goes through life looking like a furious sardine."

"Gussy" was old by nature as well. He was irritable, with the settled and humourless grumpiness of some senile club- dweller. He was pompous, with a vocabulary of studied and cor- rect largiloquence which would have done credit to a head-master of old-fashioned school fiction. But he was at least a captain who regarded the Test series as the Australians do, not as sport," but as five pitched battles of a war. As a matter of fact, he was inclined to go further and to look on the whole thing as nothing short of a crusade.

Moreover, he was the best slow spin bowler England had pos- sessed in the last ten years. This was his third tour, and seniority (combined with a certain dearth of competition), had established him as leader. He was a bit of a joke to most of the slide, but they were a very loyal crowd and, to quote Dandy Stratton again, "one ought to be thankful for any really good joke on one of these tours."

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♫

Christmas Day falling on a Sunday, the authorities had arranged to play the third Test at Sydney bang in the middle of the so-called festive season. The match had started on the Fri- day. The score at the close of play on Saturday was pretty level. Australia, 452; England. 109 for 2; Stratton not out 52. Pogson not out 0. Not too good, perhaps, but there seemed no grounds for panic of recrimination.

Yet the conversation in the players' room did not seem to be animated by the peace-and-good-will spirit of Christmas. Most

of the English team had changed before the close of play and had returned to their hotel before Gussy Pogson and Dandy were, out of their flannels. Harry Braham, the manager, had looked in and had decided from Gussy's dameanour that anything he want- ed to say had better be said later. Gussy had dismissed the bag- gageman and the masseur and had barred the door against autograph hunters and other well-meaning visitors. And now be in a towel, and Dandy, in nothing at all, settled down to a good old heart-to-heart argument.

The vast crowd was melting away. beneath the score board (itself the size. of most English county Across the ground, pavilions) remained only a few survivors of the afternoon's serried, sweating, shouting horde of enthusiasts of the famous "Hill." The bottle-boys (a recognized occupation) were going round collecting the relics of the day's beer consumption a re- cord one, incidentally. The last denizens of the Hill remained, al- most knee-deep in discarded newspapers, like the survivors of an upheaved ants' nest.

But on the members' side of the ground was a charming con- trast where, in the enclosure reserved for them, dallied some choice specimens of the lilies of the cricket field the smartest prettiest, and most elegant race of girls ir. the world. The sound of their laughter danced upon the air; snatches of their conver sation, too, in vivacious squeaks which might have emanated from a group of angels in frolicsome mood playing at being Cockneys. Sydney has reason to be proud of its ladies' enclosure, and provides as worthy a setting as possible for the cluster of gems, for neat borders with pansies growing in them skirt the rails, and on Saturday in State matches a heated band, in the full-dress. uniform of the Portuguese Air Force, discourses brazen entertain- ment in the somewhat time-worn form of a selection from: The Gondoliers.

16

By

Ben Travers

Dandy Stratton was greatly in favour with the ladies, enclo- sure, and, as was only fair, the ladies' enclosure was greatly in favour with Dandy. He was twenty-four, one of the few amateurs" in the side, number three in England's batting order, and worthy the position; a glorious crickster." And if the young man's fancy lightly turned in the most natural direction, do you blame" him? It didn't affect his game, anyhow. But his captain was very exer- cised about it. This was, in fact, the cause of all the bother at the moment.

"Dash it. protested Dandy. "I walked out there into that stew-pot, with the barrackers howling like a bunch of Romans "at a Christian-eating contest; I make 50 not out, and not only that. When, a quarter of an hour before the finish, you, of all people, come plodding out, to bat, to the delighted shrieks of the populace -

:

"I considered it my duty to sacrifice myself in the attempt to stave off further, disaster."

"Anyhow, I, knowing you are the most piffling number ten batsman on record, take the strike for the rest of the day and save your bald scalp. And now you start ticking me off.”

"I'm not casting reflections on your performance at the grease. You know perfectly well what my complaint is."

31

"too."

"Yes, I do. The barrackers have upset you. I saw the way your moustache bristled when that, fellow on the Hill shouted out, Take off yer cap and show us yer permanent wave."

"Nothing of the sort. I'm impervious to those Yahoos. 'But your mind doesn't seem to be on the game at`alk" "Oh, yes it is," said Dandy softly. "And a

ashed good game, "At.the luncheon interval," proceeded Gussy, instead of en- joying a reasonable meal, what do you do? You gobble a sand- wich, dash up to the players window, and spend the entire in- terval scanning the women's enclosure through "field-glasses. Even when you were batting you kept shooting glances in that direction. It was very marked and --- and insufferable. good heavens, just now, when we were running a single, you said Why, something to me, as we crossed between wickets, about "the one. in green.""

BONZO WINS THE CHRISTMAS RAFFLE. By G. E. Studdy.