PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE 13 



even going through the form of asking permission 

 of masters, landowners, gamekeepers, or anybody. 



An amusing illustration of the prevalence of these 

 sporting propensities, not only among my father's 

 school friends, but also among those living in the 

 town and neighbourhood of Bromsgrove, was given 

 on a certain occasion during school hours, which 

 was often called to mind afterwards, and told with 

 a lively sense of the ridiculous. An unfortunate 

 " day boy," who was continually getting into trouble 

 with the masters for his extraordinary faculty for 

 making " false quantities," was one day " up " with 

 a Greek lesson before an under-master, one of 

 whose prcznomina was the appropriate one of Rod- 

 well. The unhappy youth was asked by the said 

 master, " Where did you find the first aorist?" 

 Thinking he said, "Where did you find the first hare, 

 sir?" the boy, under the influence, seemingly, of the 

 ruling passion, naively, as the record hath it, replied 

 (it was soon after the ist of September, and the 

 lad's father a gentleman farmer in the neighbour- 

 hood), " If you please, sir, my father found him 

 in the wheat stubble, and he fired both barrels at 

 him and missed him, and then he ' whanged' the 

 gun-barrel after him." I will not dwell on the 

 sudden consequences of thisi slight misunderstand- 

 ing on the part of the luckless boy more than to 

 say that the master on this occasion at least proved 

 himself worthy of his name ! 



The Bromsgrovian schoolboys were enthusiastic 

 entomologists. A simple device was theirs for catch- 



