Tales of St. Austin's

lacker. He fell in this fashion. One Easter term his form had half-finished a speech of Demosthenes, and the form-master gave them to understand that they would absorb the rest during the forthcom

les. It is believed that the shock destroyed his reason. At any rate, the fact remains that that term (the summer term, mark you) he won two prizes. In the following term he won three. To recapitulate his outrages from that time to the present were a harrowing and u

y porter, at Paddington, when the Brighton train started. I have gone for the broad-jump record in trying to avoid a motor-car. I have played Spillikins and Ping-Pong. But never again have I felt the excitement that used to wander athwart my moral backbone when I was put on to translate a passage containing a notorious crux and s

most of the term with average success. Then came the Examinations. The dabbler in unseen translations found himself caught as in a snare. Gone was the peaceful security in wh

aminers? How is he to master the contents of a book of Thucydides in a couple of days? It is a fearsome problem. Perhaps he will get up in the small hours and work by candl

whether examiners ever are satisfied, except by Harry the hero of the school st

elves into a sort of drama with three

e: a

is Per

M

SCI

ISTO

ITH (dow

at table and op

ceiling (R.), MEPHISTOP

, my dear lad. A little Thucydides would be a very good thing. Thucydi

r-um-let

e Introduction and preten

g done so):

E wipes a

himself a thorough master

so became infernally

gloomil

sneerin

g p

ar lad, that you had better begin? Time and

TH:

ot, I fear, a very fir

you work har

mily): Hum!

ore if anything. By the way, excuse me asking, but ha

dear sir!

(reprovingl

as I might have done. Such a lot of thin

her well last Saturday. I had just run up on business, and some

ection): Just a bit-117 not out.

not at all. Let's

s prevented by MEPH., who eggs SMITH

in an acid voice): Th

ucydides on the table i

it, in case yo

t, yes! Here, I s

NCE: He

y you had prepared this book during the term?

ave you ever played billiards wi

distress yourself, old chap. You obviously can't get thro

plication to study, master a considerable portio

one of the passages he had p

he were to pursue the course which I ha

ort, derisive la

ecent lot of books, pommy word you have. Rodney Stone, V

: I am sorry, but I must really go

sorro

n my life. Can't think why you let him hang on to you so. We may as well m

: Not

say you'd not r

. Only got i

ing. All short sto

st effort): But

you can easily get up

cyd

an. Never thought of

es. T

anishes through floor enveloped in red flame.

e cl

and his Thucydides paper will be of such a calibre t

1

O

its the original work of others and professes to supply

th Gr

b from limb, you will almost certainly be subjected to the utmost rigour of the law, and you will be lucky if you escape a heavy fine of five or ten shillings, exclusive of the costs of the case. Now, this is not right on the face of it. It is even wrong. The law should take into account the extrem

is book of Familiar Quotations with brutal callousness, and for every tricky passage in the work which he is editing, finds and makes a note of three or four even trickier ones from other works. Who has not in his time been brought face to face with a word which defies translation? There are two courses open to you on such an occasion, to look the word up in the lexicon, or in the notes. You, of course, turn up the notes, and find: 'See line 80.' You look up line 80, hoping to see a translation, and there you are told that a rather similar construction occurs in Xenophades' Lyrics from a Padded Cell. On this, the craven of spirit will resort to the lexicon, but the man of mettle wi

erty to divulge', was suddenly aware that he was being addressed, and, on giving the matter his attention, found that it was the form-master asking him to read out his note on Balbus murum aedificavit. My friend is a kind-hearted youth and of an obliging disposition, and would willingly have done what was asked of him, but there were obstacles, first and foremost of which ranked the fact that, taking advantage of his position on the back desk (whither he

hus we see (1) and (14) that,' etc. The unlucky student puts a finger on the page to keep the place, and hunts up view one. Having found this, and marked the spot with another finger, he proceeds to look up view fourteen. He places another finger on this, and reads on, as follows: 'Zmpe, however, maintains that Schrumpff (see 3) is practically insane, that Spleckzh (see 34) is only a little better, and that Rswkg (see 97 a (b) C3) is so far from being right that his views may be dismissed as readily as those of Xkryt (see 5x).' At this point brain-fever sets in, the victim's last coherent thought being a passionate wish for more fingers. A friend of mine who was the wonder o

n always listen best with their eyes closed. Nor poppy, nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups of the world can ever medicine them to that sweet sleep that they have just been enjoying. And now they must write a 'good, long note'. It is in such extremities that your veteran shows up well. He does not betray any discomfort. Not he. He rather enjoys the prospect, in fact, of being permitted to place the master's golden eloquence on paper. So he takes up his

from dictation. Of the 'good, long note' your French scholar might well remark: 'C'est terrible', but justice would compel him to add, as he th

p again at once. The only plan is to wait for some perceptible break in the flow of words, and dash in like lightning. It is much the same sort of thing as boarding a bus when in motion. And so you can take a long rest, provided you are in an obscure part of the room. In passing, I might add that a very pleasing indoor ga

ane, but confined rigidly to your own circle of acquaintances. The chief advantage of such a work is that you will continue to write while the notes are being dictated. To throw your pen down with an air of finality and begin reading some congenial work of fiction would be a gallant action, but impolitic. No, writing of some sort is essential, and as it is out of the question to take down the notes, what better substitute than an unofficial journal could be found? To one whose contributions to the School magazine are constantly being cut down to mere skeletons by the hands of censors, there is a rapture otherwise unattainable in a page of really scurrilous items about those in authority. Try it yourselves, my beamish lads. Think of something really bad about somebody. Write it down and gloat over it. Sometimes, indeed, it is of the utmost use in determining your future career. You will probably remember those Titanic articles that appeared at the beginning of the war in The Weekly Luggage-Train, dealing with all the crimes of the War Office-the generals, the soldiers, the enemy-of everybody, in fact, except the editor, staff and office-boy of The W.L.T. Well, the writer of

It is the sort of thing Mr Gilbert's 'rapturous maidens' might have said: 'How Botticellian! How Fr

1

ING ABOUT

always my custom, when Fate obliged me to walk to school with a casual acquaintance, to whom I could not unburden my soul of those pr

epresented to me that I couldn't play cricket for nuts. My captain said as much when I ran him out in the match of the season after he had made forty-nine and looked like stopping. A bowling acquaintance heartily endorsed his opinion on the occasion of my missing three catches off him in one over. This, however, I attribute to prejudice, for the man I miss

the Oval, Surrey v. Middlesex. How well I remember that occasion! Albert Trott was bowling (Bertie we used to call him); I forget who was batting. Suddenly the ball came soaring in my direction. I was not nervous. I put do

de your study with a walking-stick and a ball of paper? That's the game, my boy, for testing your skill of wrist and eye. A century v. the M.C.C. is well enough in its way, but give me the man who can watch 'em in a narrow passage, lit only by a flickering g

ervation I am inclined to think that the umpire keeps his bat by him, firstly, in order that no unlicensed hand shall commandeer it unbeknownst, and secondly, so that he shall be ready to go in directly his predecessor is out. There is an ill-concealed restiveness about his movements, as he watches the batsmen getting set, that betrays an overwrought spirit. Then of a sudden one of them plays a ball on to his pad. ''s that?' asks the bowler, with an overdone carelessness. 'Clean out. Now I'm in,' and already he is rushing up the middle of the pitch to take possession. When he gets to the wicket a short argument ensues. 'Look here,

last-wicket man, when there are ten to make to win, or five minutes left to make a draw of a losing game, is fully as impressive a ceremony as the launching of the latest battleship. An interested cro

ich he obviously had no idea whatever. At this he breaks down utterly, and, if emotional, will sob into his batting glove. He is assisted down the Pavilion steps, and reaches the wic

is, and finds it lifted genially over the leg-boundary, is well worth seeing. I remember in one school match, the last man, unfortunately on the opposite side, did this three times in one over, ultimately retiring to a fluky catch in the slips with forty-one to his name. Nervousness at cricket is a curious thi

th interest for some time, she gave out this profound truth: 'They all attend specially to one man.' It would be difficult to sum up the causes of funk more lucidly and concisely. To be a

reporter who knows most about the game. Everyone, moreover, is at heart a critic, whether he represent the majesty of the Press or not. From the lady of Hoxton, who crushes her friend's latest confection with the words, 'My, wot an

scores, which affords but meagre employment for a really critical mind. In cricket, however, nothing can escape you.

ncholy pleasure in watching school matches, and saying So-and-So will make quite a fair school-boy bat in time, but he must get rid of that stroke of his on the off, and that shocking leg-hit, and a few of those awful strokes in the slips, but that on the whole, he is by no means lacking in promise. I find it refreshing. If, however, you feel compelled not merely to look on, but to play, as one often does at schools where cricket is compulsory, it is impossible to exaggerate the importance of white boots. The game you play before you get white boots is not cricket, but a weak imitation. The process of initiation is generall

ikes of you and me. As long as the game goes in his favour the cloven hoof may not show itself. But give him a good steady spell of leather-hunting, and you will know him for what he is, a mere dilettante, a dabbler, in a word, a worm, who ought never to be allowed to play at all. The worst of this species will sometimes take advantage of the fact that the game in which they happen to

hat supreme emotion of 'something attempted, something done', which comes to a bowler when a ball pitches in a hole near point's feet, and whips into the leg stump. It is one crowded second of glorious life. Again, the words 'retired hurt' on the score-sheet are far more pleasant to the bowler than the batsman. The groan of a batsman when a loose ball hits him full pitch in the ri

ritten of cricket without mentioning Alfred Mynn or Fuller Pilch, I heav

1

BROWN

jected to having the window open. He had said something rather bitter about the War Office, and had hoped I

ding Tom Brown's S

statement of fact, and appeared to

book

er

ve heard of the T

wearily, and

eric Question. You have h

r of the Iliad. When at school I had been made to take down notes

n's Schooldays is this. It is obvious that part one and part tw

t Mr Hughes wrot

ly wrote the first half. The question is, who wrote the secon

ink he didn't writ

rt one carefully, and then read par

noticed anything peculiar about it, except that the

is. Do you think the s

? Now

as difficult to unde

nybody suspected a dual, or rather a composite, authorship. Burkett-Smith, if you remember, based his arguments on two very significant points. The first of these was a comparison between the football match in the first part and

es

hat? I am young, says one of Gilbert's characters, the Grand Duke, I think, but, he adds, I am not so young as that. Tom may have been young, but would he,

houted, with

eeches to be made during the luncheon interval. Comic Songs! Do you hear me, sir? COMIC SONGS!! And this when he w

ositively shrieked

ll. His second argument is founded on

d, fiercely,' or rather o

ble,' said

stor who masquerades as Tom in

efer is that which he makes to the master while he is looking on at the M.C.C. match. In passing, sir,

olently. I was too

s, but the substance of them is this, that, though on his merits Arthur was not worth his place, he thought it would do him such

other, forming silently with our lips the w

moved and see his team being beaten in the most important match of the season (and, indeed, for all that the author tells us it may have been the only match of the season), for no other reason than that he thought a first eleven cap would prove a valuable tonic to an unspeakable personal friend of his, whether, I say,

,' I

not been so mistaken he would probably have been a great deal more correct. The great argument put forward by the supporters of what I may call the "One Author" view, was, that the fight in part two could not have been written by anyone except the author of the fight with Flashman

?' I

the actual fight is the work of the genuine author

I said. '

fight as that fight is described, also be capable of stopping it just as the man the

do you ex

s pen and started to Wales for a holiday. He had been there a week or more, when one day, as he was reclining on the peak of a mountain looking down a deep precipice, he was aware of a body of

vant, sir,

k to you on an importa

the Secret Society

each Of Every Boy, And

t of the S.S.F.P.W.L.W.

bow

don't think I have t

gh

k. Our representative has read Part I, and reports unfavourably upon it. It con

es; "Tom is a boy, not a patent medicine. In o

our book must be written to suit the rules of our Society.

mean, I d

, and if you attempt to write that second part yourself-"' (he paused dramatically)

do you account for t

lia

ed to Mr Hughes inserting a chapter of his own, on condition

ut

cke

E

, pleas

standing at the open door

m my ticket, 'where's the gentl

ir? I haven't

red hair? I mean, in twe

n the carriage all the way up

bly I