Nor was my annoyance lessened by a little meeting I
witnessed between young Crowley and his father, who shrugged as
he stopped and stooped to convey some information which made the
young man look a little blank. It may have been pure self-
consciousness on my part, but I could have sworn that the trouble
was their inability to secure the great Raffles without his
insignificant friend.
Then the bell rang, and I climbed to the top of the pavilion to
watch Raffles bowl. No subtleties are lost up there; and if ever
a bowler was full of them, it was A. J. Raffles on this day, as,
indeed, all the cricket world remembers. One had not to be a
cricketer oneself to appreciate his perfect command of pitch and
break, his beautifully easy action, which never varied with the
varying pace, his great ball on the leg-stump--his dropping
head-ball--in a word, the infinite ingenuity of that versatile
attack. It was no mere exhibition of athletic prowess, it was an
intellectual treat, and one with a special significance in my
eyes. I saw the "affinity between the two things," saw it in
that afternoon's tireless warfare against the flower of
professional cricket. It was not that Raffles took many wickets
for few runs; he was too fine a bowler to mind being hit; and
time was short, and the wicket good. What I admired, and what I
remember, was the combination of resource and cunning, of
patience and precision, of head-work and handiwork, which made
every over an artistic whole.
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