CHAPTER VI 



First Term at Rugby " Jex " Godley's Fag The Curing of 

 Barker " Orange !! Peel's Finance Palmy Days of Rugby 

 Cricket Upper Middle I. Death of my Father Return 

 to School Catering Arrangements " Mindar " and his 

 Song Rugby Football All must come House Runs 

 House Washing First Experiences of "Froddy" Natural 

 Science and Modern Languages despised First House 

 Supper Departure of Demigods 



IT was in August, 1865, that I went to Rugby School, 

 where my house-master was the Rev. T. W. Jex- 

 Blake, one of the most delightful of men, and wholly 

 different from any ordinary schoolmaster. " Jex," as we 

 used to call him, was himself an old Rugbeian, and had 

 established a record time for the Crick run which was 

 not beaten for a good many years. He was blind of one 

 eye or very nearly so, and there was a tradition that 

 this was due to a combat in which he had engaged in a 

 Town-and-Gown row at Oxford. Probably there was 

 no truth in this, but it served to increase his popularity. 

 He was certainly a good man to hounds and with the drag 

 at Oxford. To me he was always kindness itself ; but 

 I am writing now of the early days when a new fellow 

 has to settle down as best he can in strange environment. 

 I was put in Upper Middle I. to commence with, and 

 therefore had my experience of fagging, which I have 

 never regretted. Fags in each house were distributed 

 among the members of the Vlth, for special service, such 

 as dusting the great man's study and his books, sweeping 

 the carpet, and so forth. It fell to my lot to be fag to 

 J. A. Godley, who is now Lord Kilbracken, and I was 

 also in the bedroom over which he was supreme. He 

 was always one of the very best, and even on my 



