RUGBY CRICKET 73 



at the school a year or more, when asked their names, 

 parentage and so forth. The hat as a distinguishing mark 

 was decidedly inconvenient, and it soon assumed con- 

 certina shape from the attentions bestowed on it. To 

 the best of my recollection my first study was shared with 

 John Sayer, who was somewhat senior to me, but I can 

 much more clearly recall a red-haired youth named Peel 

 " Orange " Peel, as he was, of course, styled. He must 

 have been a born financier, for he throve mightily by 

 getting up raffles for half-a-sovereign. He would go round 

 the studies and sell shilling tickets no matter how many 

 and would not close his list until he had a good margin 

 of profit. Thus one half-sovereign served him as a 

 money-maker from the beginning to the end of a term. 



It was the Augustan age of Rugby cricket when I was 

 there, Yardley, Pauncefote, C. K. Francis, R. G. Venables 

 and others being no ephemeral names in this respect. 



Venables was in our house, and he was out by himself 

 as a bowler in 1865. I, who came in at the tag end of a 

 cricket season, was at first thought to promise very well, 

 because, on being given a trial, I made ten or a dozen off 

 Venables. 



He was a left-hand, medium-pace bowler, and somehow 

 I hit him, but the season was ending, and there was no 

 further chance to demonstrate whether this was a fluke 

 or not. He was four years older than myself and, I am 

 glad to say, still is for I see he subscribed to The Sportsman 

 fund, in connection with Captain P. F. Warner's cricket, 

 quite recently. 



My division of Upper Middle I. was under the control 

 of a master named Moberly, a good, amiable being who 

 used to be irreverently called "Guts," 1 though for what 

 reason I never knew, as he certainly was not a particularly 

 stout man. Before I had been at the school a week it 

 was discovered that I had been underrated in being 



1 A contemporary of the author at Rugby writes : " As for old 

 Moberly's nickname, I think you have forgotten his contour. He had 

 a big protuberant paunch, though not otherwise a fat man." 



