But Jimmy Silver, resolutely as he had declared victory
impossible to his intimate friends, was not the man to depress his
team by letting it become generally known that he considered
Blackburn's chances small.
"You must work like niggers in the field," he said; "don't give away a
run. Seventy-nine isn't much to make, but if we get Fenn out for a
few, they won't come near it."
He did not add that in his opinion Fenn would take very good care that
he did not get out for a few. It was far more likely that he would
make that seventy-nine off his own bat in a dozen overs.
"You'd better begin, Kennedy," he continued, "from the top end. Place
your men where you want 'em. I should have an extra man in the deep,
if I were you. That's where Fenn kept putting them last innings. And
you'll want a short leg, only for goodness sake keep them off the
leg-side if you can. It's a safe four to Fenn every time if you don't.
Look out, you chaps. Man in."
Kay's first pair were coming down the pavilion steps.
Challis, going
to his place at short slip, called Silver's attention to a remarkable
fact.
"Hullo," he said, "why isn't Fenn coming in first?"
"What! By Jove, nor he is. That's queer. All the better for us. You
might get a bit finer, Challis, in case they snick 'em."
Wayburn, who had accompanied Fenn to the wicket at the beginning of
Kay's first innings, had now for his partner one Walton, a large,
unpleasant-looking youth, said to be a bit of a bruiser, and known to
be a black sheep.
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