As was my habit on these occasions five years ago, I bought a copy of The Daily Telegraph on entering the ground.  In the ordinary way I do not take in this paper, but I have always had a warm admiration for it, holding it to have qualities which place it far above any other London journal of similar price.  For the seats at Lord’s are uncommonly hard, and a Daily Telegraph, folded twice and placed beneath one, brings something of the solace which good literature will always bring.  My friends had noticed before the war, without being able to account for it, that my views became noticeably more orthodox as the summer advanced, only to fall away again with the approach of autumn.  I must have been influenced subconsciously by the leading articles.

It rained, and play was stopped for an hour or two.  Before the war I should have been annoyed about this, and I should have said bitterly that it was just my luck.  But now I felt that I was indeed lucky thus to recapture in one day all the old sensations.  It was delightful to herald again a break in the clouds, and to hear the crowd clapping hopefully as soon as ever the rain had ceased; to applaud the umpires, brave fellows, when they ventured forth at last to inspect the pitch; to realize from the sudden activity of the groundsmen that the decision was a favourable one; to see the umpires, this time in their white coats, come out again with the ball and the bails; and so to settle down once more to the business of the day.

Perhaps the cricket was slow from the point of view of the follower of league football, but I do not feel that this is any condemnation of it.  An essay of Lamb’s would be slow to a reader of William le Queux’s works, who wanted a new body in each chapter.  I shall not quarrel with anyone who holds that a day at Lord’s is a dull day; if he thinks so, let him take his amusement elsewhere.  But let him not quarrel with me, because I keep to my opinion, as firmly now as before the war, that a day at Lord’s is a joyous day.  If he will leave me the old Lord’s, I will promise not to brighten his football for him.

By the Sea

It is very pleasant in August to recline in Fleet Street, or wherever stern business keeps one, and to think of the sea.  I do not envy the millions at Margate and Blackpool, at Salcombe and Minehead, for I have persuaded myself that the sea is not what it was in my day.  Then the pools were always full of starfish; crabs—­really big crabs—­stalked the deserted sands; and anemones waved their feelers at you from every rock.