man ... The restraints imposed upon him by social conditions in the West Indies had become intolerable and he decided to stand them no longer." According to James, Constantine would never have left Trinidad and Tobago had he been able to live with "honour [and] a little profit". In the tour's opening first-class match, against Derbyshire, Constantine began his second innings when the West Indians needed 40 runs to win; in seven scoring shots, Constantine hit 31 runs and took the team to a two-wicket victory. In the following match he scored his maiden first-class century, 130 in 90 minutes, against Essex. As the tour proceeded, Constantine continued his success; the Middlesex game at Lord's brought his name to the widest notice in cricket circles. Although struggling for fitness, he chose to play knowing that he was a star attraction in this high-profile game. Middlesex batted first, and reached 352 before declaring the innings closed—Constantine bowled little owing to his injury—and the West Indies were struggling at 79 for five when Constantine came in to bat. He scored 50 in 18 minutes and reached 86 in under an hour, to avert his side's follow-on. In Middlesex's second innings, Constantine took seven for 57 in a spell of extremely fast bowling and the county were dismissed for 136. The West Indies needed 259 to win; they looked likely to lose when Constantine returned to bat with the score 121 for five. He scored 103 in 60 minutes, hitting two sixes and 12 fours and guiding the West Indies to a three-wicket victory. For players and spectators this was the defining match of Constantine's career; many years later, cricket writer E. W. Swanton suggested that there were few all-round performances in the history of cricket to match it. Shortly after the game, Nelson, a cricket club in the Lancashire League, offered Constantine a professional contract. The rest of Constantine's 1928 tour was generally successful; only in the three Test matches, the first played by the West Indies, was he less effective. Although he took the West Indies' first wicket in Test cricket, dismissing Charlie Hallows, and finished with innings figures of four for 82, he took only one more wicket during the remainder of the series and ended with five wickets at an average of 52.40; with the bat, he scored 89 runs in six innings at 14.83. Even so, Jack Hobbs