ONE:The doctor's astonishment was turned into annoyance by the spectacle of his shattered wicket. A vague clatter of applause broke out. The wicket-keeper stooped down to pick up the bails. The fielders relaxed and flopped down on the grass. They seemed to have discovered suddenly that it was a hot afternoon, and that cricket was, after all, a comparatively strenuous game. One of the umpires, a sly, nasty fellow, screwed up his eyes and looked hard at the doctor as the latter passed him, walking with the slow, meditative gait of the bowled out, and swinging his gloves. There was nothing to do but to glare back, and make the umpire feel a worm. The doctor wore an eye-glass, and he succeeded admirably. His irritation boiled over and produced a sense of ungovernable, childish rage. Somehow, he had not been able to make any runs this season, and his bowling average was all to pieces. He began to think he ought to give up cricket. He was getting[Pg 3] past the age when a man can accept reverses in the spirit of the game, and he was sick and tired of seeing his name every week in the Great Wymering Gazette as having been dismissed for a "mere handful.""Certainly, my boy," the Doctor answered, "there are thirteen rivers and canals in Osaka, so that the city has an abundance of water communication. The streets are generally at right angles, and there are more than a hundred bridges over the water-ways. From this circumstance Osaka has received the name of the Venice of Japan, and she certainly deserves it. Formerly her commerce by water was very great, and you would see a large fleet of junks in the river below the town. The opening of the railway to Kobe has somewhat diminished the traffic by water; but it is still quite extensive, and employs a goodly amount of capital.
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