Hurrah! we are equal! Actually they are running another! They won't do it.

Up comes the ball to the wicket-keeper, and forward darts Ned's bat over the crease.
"How's that, umpire ?" cries the wicket-keeper.
"Not out!" "Time's up!" Oh, how we cheer! How we rush forward and shoulder Ned home to the tent.

Never was such a close shave of a match! Ned himself by no means shares in the general excitement.
"Why, what a hurry you fellows were in!" he says.

"Look here, George, I'll show you now what I meant about the springs on the pads." Now you will understand what a very aggravating fellow this Ned Easy was; and yet he generally managed to come off best in the end.

He generally managed to scrape in at the finish of whatever he undertook.
I am certain that if he were a prisoner of war _let_ out on parole, with a pledge to return in one hour or suffer death, he would turn up cool and comfortable on the sixtieth tick of the sixtieth minute of that hour, and look quite surprised at the men who were loading their muskets for his execution.
But some day the chances are he will be late in earnest, and then he will have to repent in a hurry of his bad speed.
A fellow who is easy-going about his time is generally easy-going about his friends, his money, and his morals.
Not that Ned is the sort of fellow to turn out a rascal exactly.