QUIPS AND CRANKS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 942, 21 March 1890, Page 6

QUIPS AND CRANKS.

•HOW’S THAT, UMPIRE?’ 4 No good umpire should travel out of his province to give extra-judicial dicta,’ Bays the anthor of ‘Some Cricketing Stories.’ ‘We have all heard of the umpire who, when the bowler asked, 4 How’s that ? ’ responded admiringly, 4 Beautiful ! ’ This was at least complimentary, if not satisfactory ; but some of these extra-jud cial umpires’ dicta are neither the one nor the other. Mr S. was many years ago captaining a scratch eleven against an eleven of potters in Sonth Devon. It was an excellent match. The last potter was in ; they had tvro runs to make to tie. The batsman played a ball to cover-point. ‘ Come aloDg ! ’ said he, starting to run. ‘No, I tell ’ee—get back, mun 1 ’ said the potter at the other end. So the striker turned in mid-career, aud in so doing slipped. The ball was well retnrned to Mr S. at the wicket. He promptly knooked off the bails, and for form’s sake, appealed to the umpire, 4 How’s that ? ’ It was the potter’s umpire. ‘ Not out ! ’ 4 What ? ’ said Mr S., astounded. Then, picking together the stumps, he got them all upright agaiu and the bails on before

the potter succeeded in scrambling back into his ground. ‘Well, how’s that then?’ he asked, again knocking off the bails with the ball in his band. ‘JNot out!’ came the sturdy answer, this time with the addition, ‘ and,, if ye ask again! I’ll punch yer blooming ’ead ! ’ . ‘ Then,’ said Mr S., relating the story, ‘ I thought it was time for me to go on to bowl, and bowled one ball which went ten yards wide of the wicket and nearly killed poiut, and away it went into the furze-bushes for four wides, and has never been heard of since. So the potters won the match.” ’

A certain bishop was homeward bound from the United States, travelling luxuriously in a double cabin with Mrs Bishop. It was a very hot night, with thunder in the air, and as the Atlantic liner slipped through the water, doing her eighteen or nineteen knots an hour, the cabin was lit up with the lightniog-flashes. Mrs Bishop could not sleep for the heat. The bishop appealed to, lumbered out of bis berth and opened a porthole.' Suddenly there lobbed in through the port-hole a wooden ball attached to a string. The bishop was perplexed, but he tied It up, coiling the string over a nail in the wall, and then retired to rest. The ball was an apple of discord in that peaceful cabin, for it hit against the side of the vessel as she lurched, and Mrs Bishop grew queulonsand disturbed. Up started the poor bishop again; aud to end matters, he nncoiled the cord and pnt the ball safe and sound under his pillow. There was a heavy thunderstorm, but the bishop slept soundly that night. The next morning at breakfast, the captain presiding, his lordship told the tale with a good deal of episcopal solemnity and detail. The captain laughed, the bishop laughed, too, thinking his story a good one. Then the captaiu told hipo that the ball was the end of the lightning conductor. That night the bishop looked under his pillow before going to bed, and slept with a closed port-hole.