“I’ll do what I can,” said Mr. Direck.

His captain presently confirmed this appointment.

His stick was really a sort of club and the ball was a firm hard cricket ball....  He resolved to be very gentle with Cecily, and see that she didn’t get hurt.

The sides took their places for the game, and a kind of order became apparent to Mr. Direck.  In the centre stood Mr. Britling and the opposing captain, and the ball lay between them.  They were preparing to “bully off” and start the game.  In a line with each of them were four other forwards.  They all looked spirited and intent young people, and Mr. Direck wished he had had more exercise to justify his own alert appearance.  Behind each centre forward hovered one of the Britling boys.  Then on each side came a vaguer row of three backs, persons of gentler disposition or maturer years.  They included Mr. Raeburn, who was considered to have great natural abilities for hockey but little experience.  Mr. Raeburn was behind Mr. Direck.  Mrs. Britling was the centre back.  Then in a corner of Mr. Direck’s side was a small girl of six or seven, and in the half-circle about the goal a lady in a motoring dust coat and a very short little man whom Mr. Direck had not previously remarked.  Mr. Lawrence Carmine, stripped to the braces, which were richly ornamented with Oriental embroidery, kept goal for our team.

The centre forwards went through a rapid little ceremony.  They smote their sticks on the ground, and then hit the sticks together.  “One,” said Mr. Britling.  The operation was repeated.  “Two,” ...  “Three.”

Smack, Mr. Britling had got it and the ball had gone to the shorter and sturdier of the younger Britlings, who had been standing behind Mr. Direck’s captain.  Crack, and it was away to Teddy; smack, and it was coming right at Direck.

“Lordy!” he said, and prepared to smite it.

Then something swift and blue had flashed before him, intercepted the ball and shot it past him.  This was Cecily Corner, and she and Teddy were running abreast like the wind towards Mr. Raeburn.

“Hey!” cried Mr. Raeburn, “stop!” and advanced, as it seemed to Mr. Direck, with unseemly and threatening gestures towards Cissie.

But before Mr. Direck could adjust his mind to this new phase of affairs, Cecily had passed the right honourable gentleman with the same mysterious ease with which she had flashed by Mr. Direck, and was bearing down upon the miscellaneous Landwehr which formed the “backs” of Mr. Direck’s side.

“You rabbit!” cried Mr. Raeburn, and became extraordinarily active in pursuit, administering great lengths of arm and leg with a centralised efficiency he had not hitherto displayed.