“All Muggleton had the first innings, and the interest became intense when Mr. Dumkins and Mr. Podder—­two of the most renowned members of that distinguished club—­walked bat in hand to their respective wickets.  Mr. Luffy, the highest ornament of Dingley Dell, was pitched to bowl against the redoubtable Dumkins, and Mr. Struggles was selected to do the same kind office for the hitherto unconquered Podder...The umpires were stationed behind the wickets [Tom Peregrine had been suborned for Winson, and proved the most useful man on the side], the scorers were prepared to notch the runs.  A breathless silence ensued.  Mr. Luffy retired a few paces behind the wicket of the passive Podder, and applied the ball to his right eye for several seconds.  Dumkins [the author] confidently awaited its coming with his eyes fixed on the motions of Mr. Luffy.  ‘Play!’ suddenly cried the bowler.  The ball flew from his hand straight and swift towards the centre stump of the wicket.  The wary Dumkins was on the alert; it fell upon the tip of his bat....”

Here, with deep sorrow, let it be stated that the writer failed to evince the admirable skill displayed by his worthy prototype; the Dumkins of grim reality was unable to compete with the Dumkins of fiction.  Instead of “sending the ball far away over the heads of the scouts; who just stooped low enough to let it fly over them,” I caught it just as it pitched on a rabbit-hole, and sent it straight up into the air like a soaring rocket.  “Right, right, I have it!” yelled bowler and wicket-keeper simultaneously.  “Run two, Podder; they’ll never catch it!” shouted Dumkins with all his might.  “Catch it in your ’at, Bill!” screamed the Edgeworth eleven.  Never was such confusion!  I was already starting for the second run, whilst my stout fellow batsman was halfway through the first, when the ball came down like a meteor, and, narrowly shaving the luckless “Podder’s” head, hit the ground with a loud thud about five yards distant from the outstretched hands of the anxious bowler, who collided with his ally, the wicket-keeper, in the middle of the pitch.  Half stunned by the shock, and disappointed at his want of success in his attempt to “judge” the catch, the bowler had yet presence of mind enough to seize the ball and hurl it madly at the stumps.  But the wicket-keeper being still hors de combat, it flew away towards the spectators, and buried itself among the mowing grass.  “Come six, Podder!” I shouted, amid cries of “Keep on running!” “Run it out!” etc., from spectators and scouts alike.  And run we did, for the umpire forgot to call “lost ball,” and we should have been running still but for the ingenuity of one of our opponents; for, whilst all were busily engaged in searching among the grass, a red-faced yokel stole up unawares, with an innocent expression on his face, raced poor “Podder” down the pitch, produced the ball from his trouser pocket, and knocked off the bails in the nick of time.  “Out,” says Peregrine, amid a roar of laughter from the whole field; and Mr.  “Podder” had to go.