I’m sorry, reader; I really and truly am.  There’s my trunk call ...  “Hello.  No, I can’t hear ...”

We must finish it some other time, and you must try READING THE BOOK for yourself srsly please.

“Hello!  Hello!  Hel-lo!"...

EVOE.

* * * * *

THE VISIONARY TRIUMPH.

“This,” he said, “is my favourite dream.”

We were discussing our favourite dreams and prepared to listen.

“It is always,” he went on, “the same—­a cricket match:  and the older I get and less able to play cricket, the oftener I have it.  It is a real match, you must understand—­first-class cricket, with thousands of spectators and excitement; and it is played a very long way from my home.  That is an important point, as I will explain.

“I am merely one of the spectators.  How long I have been watching I cannot say, but the match is nearing the end and our side—­the side which has my sympathies—­is nearly all out, but still needs a few runs to win.

“What the side is I cannot clearly tell; all I know is that it is my own county, I mean the county from which I come—­say Kent—­and the match is at Old Trafford or Bramall Lane, against either Lancashire or Yorkshire.  But the important thing is that my side is a man short.  This man either has been taken ill or has had to go away because of a bereavement.  I am not clear as to that, but he is not there, anyway, and unless a substitute can be found Kent will be at a disadvantage and may lose.”

We all got ready to say something.

“Oh, yes,” he interpolated hurriedly, “I know, of course, that a substitute may not bat for another at the end of a match, but this is a dream, remember.  That, perhaps, is what dreams are for—­to provide the limited and frustrated life of the daytime with the compensations of limitless adventure and success.”

“Order!” we cried.

“I beg pardon,” he said, and returned to the vernacular.

“Very well; that is the scenario.  Meanwhile the last two batsmen are in—­the Kent captain and another:  that is to say, the last two, unless another is forthcoming.  And still there are six runs needed—­five to tie and six to win.  The excitement is appalling.  Everyone in the vast concourse is tense.  It is at this moment that the captain is bowled.”

He stopped to wipe his forehead.

“What happens then?” he continued.  “You would think the match was over.  So it would be on any ordinary ground and under ordinary conditions, and particularly so if that umpire in the Sussex and Somerset match the other day were officiating.  But he is not, and this is a dream.  What happens is that the Kent captain, instead of returning to the Pavilion, stops and talks to the other captain and then he leaves the pitch and begins to walk towards the ring.  When he reaches the ring, some way from me, he begins to ask loudly, ’Is there