82 " MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE ! " 



same strange contempt for subjects outside the Classics, 

 Divinity and History. A German lesson was regarded as 

 an opportunity for mere fooling, and the master his 

 name was Grenfell was known simply as the Man. Poor 

 fellow ! He did his best, but my learning of German 

 even throughout five years never made me master of the 

 rudiments of the language. I had a watch the checkspring 

 of which was broken, and if wound up it would run off the 

 whole twenty-four hours in about five minutes, making a 

 considerable buzzing noise in so doing. It was a frequent 

 custom, during a German lesson, to wind up this watch 

 and then pass it along from hand to hand so that the un- 

 fortunate Man, though desperately annoyed by its buzzing, 

 could never track it home. That was but one of the 

 trials to which he was subjected. 



What chances we miss in our young days ! Even 

 German would, of course, have been useful, if one had 

 cared to master the language, but somehow one didn't 

 and was not encouraged to do so. 



Some of us there were with a taste for music, and among 

 these Stuart Wortley was pre-eminent. From the first 

 he was a pianist almost of genius, and he managed to 

 keep his music going even at school, which is a rare event 

 among boys. There was a piano in the hall in our house, 

 and there were music masters, but I never saw one of 

 them. . 



All this early period was really uneventful, save that, 

 so far as I am concerned, I again found that the Lower 

 Vth was comparative child's play, and got out of it in one 

 short term, so that on returning after the Easter holidays 

 of that year, 1866, I wrote to my mother a letter which, 

 for a very special reason, I am thankful for having had 

 occasion to write. It is dated Rugby, 2oth April 1866, 

 and says : 



I arrived here safely yesterday. Scarcely any one had come, 

 so I wished that I had come by a later train. I have got fairly 

 head by the examination and get out head into the Fifth, since 

 ours is the senior division of the Lower Fifths. 



