Chapter IV

_Philip Renwick to Charles Holcombe._
X.Y.Z.
_10th August, 1914._

MY DEAR CHARLIE,--We shall be absolutely in the cart without you. They've got an awfully hot fast bowler. Bartram now tells me he can't possibly turn out, and you are the only really decent bat I know. We simply _can't_ lose to Paddlewick again--we shall never hear the last of it. (No one need know that you don't play regularly for Middlecombe.) Do try your best, old man. Mightn't your Aunt Martha be seriously ill?

Yours ever, PHIL.