MY CONTEMPORARIES 93 



shot for annually now. Yet I once beat him in shooting 

 for a sweepstake at school. He and I had tied with our 

 final shot at 500 yards, and had to take one more chance 

 as a decider. He shot first and made a centre. My 

 form at 500 yards was most erratic, being, often enough, 

 two or three misses and then a bull, but on this particular 

 occasion I brought off the bull, though none of us at that 

 time anticipated the future fame of the marksman whom 

 I defeated. 



Boys at school are strange beings, and there was one 

 fellow in our house who had been " sent to Coventry " 

 before I went to the school. Of course I do not mention 

 his name, and we were never told by the older division 

 what his offence had been ; but the punishment was a 

 grievous one, for no one ever spoke to him, or took the 

 slightest notice of him. He had entered the school in 1863, 

 being then thirteen years old, and he possessed considerable 

 ability, but his life must have been one of deadly gloom. 



Another curious case was that of W. E. Stevenson, 

 who entered in 1865, and was also in our house. He was 

 black -haired and swarthy, but amiable and well-meaning. 

 Whether from lack of a sense of humour or some peculiar 

 kink of temperament that made him a prototype of 

 Mr Bultitude, among boys, he could never hit it off with 

 any of the others and remained to the last a recluse who 

 was made a butt of when he chanced to emerge from 

 obscurity. Poor Stevenson ! I met him in later years, 

 when I had been urged to assist the formation of the 

 Liberal Union Club by writing about it in St Stephen's 

 Review. The visible promoters did not seem to me to 

 be very substantial, and I asked, before going further, 

 to be introduced to the great capitalist who, they said, 

 was behind them. It was agreed at last that I should 

 meet him at luncheon, and when I did so who should it 

 turn out to be but Stevenson ! He seemed really pleased 

 to meet me again, but, poor chap 1 I am afraid that the 

 Liberal Union Club was not very long before it had 

 absorbed his capital. 



