THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



' Wliy, to tell you the truth, uncle,' answered Francis, ' Sir 

 John told me I should see the famous Jack Bailey, who drives it, 

 and who taught him to drive four horses, when he was at Eton.' 



' Well, Frank,' continued the uncle, ' I see no great harm 

 in this request of yours ; but, as Sir John was an Etonian 

 himself, did he recommend nothing to your notice that 

 might be more serviceable to you than a Birmingham coach- 

 man ? ' 



' He didn't say much about anything else,' replied Frank, 

 ' except that, when I got old enough, and wanted a good 

 horse or a tandem, on a whole holiday, he would write a line 

 to recommend me to Stevens, who used to let him have some 

 good ones.' 



' Black Monday ' having at length arrived, Frank and his 

 brother were placed on the front roof seat of the ' Prince of 

 Wales' coach, tlie footman having been despatched by the 

 Windsor and Eton ' True Blue ' with the luggage. 



On descending from the coach at Slough, Frank having 

 slipped half a crown into Jack Bailey's hands, over and above 

 what his brother had given him when he paid the fare, shortly 

 arrived at his ' agreeable seat in Bucks,' as he used afterwards 

 to call Eton school, where their tutor having soon found that 

 his elder pupil had looked into Ovid and Virgil, and had not 

 looked into them in vain, recommended his being placed in 

 the middle remove of the fourth form, and then proceeded 

 to examine the pretensions of our hero. Finding him all but 

 innocent of the Greek tongue, his location was soon determined 

 upon. On his informing his tutor, however, that he had begun 

 making nonsense verses, a page of ' Caesar's Commentaries ' 

 was put before him, when he set to work much in the same 

 manner that the young aspirant in anatomy does, when he 

 anticipates phlebotomising, by opening the veins of full-grown 

 cabbages. 



There is not, perhaps, in the whole course of man's life, a 

 more remarkable change than the removal of the child, from 

 the luxury and freedom of a wealthy home, to the frugal diet 

 and strict subordination of a public school : from the tenderness 

 of parents, and the obsequiousness of servants, to the rude 

 and boisterous familiarity of equals, the tyranny of seniors, 

 and, too often, the rod of a cruel and capricious pedagogue. 

 These hardships, however, are beneficial : if they do not 



76 



