"
By a striking coincidence the most influential member of the cricket club
passed while Dick was in this quandary.
"Oh, Mr. Halfred, you was always very good to me on the ground--you
couldn't have me hired by the club, could ye? For I am sick of this
trade; I wants to bowl."
"You little duffer!" said Alfred, "cricket is a recreation, not a
business. Besides, it only lasts five months. Unless you adjourn to the
anitipodes. Stick to the shop like a man, and make your fortune."
"Oh, Mr. Halfred," said Dick sorrowfully, "how can I find fortune here?
Jenner don't pay. And the crowner declares he will not have it; and the
Barton _Chronicle_ says us young gents ought all to be given a holiday to
go and see one of us hanged by lot. But this is what have broke this
camel's back at last; here's a dalled thing to come smiling and smirking
in with, and put it across a counter in a poor boy's hand. Oh! oh! oh!"
"Dick," said Alfred, "if you blubber, I'll give you a hiding. You have
stumbled on a passage you can't construe. Well, who has not? But we don't
shed the briny about it.
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