CHAPTER IX 



Out of Control Money and Doctor's Certificates Mr Arrow- 

 smith's Cornucopia " Bob " Colling finds me a Horse 

 Tragedy of the Fifth Form Verse and Prose Browne Quarts. ! 

 Rifle Shooting Extraordinary Shot by Ramrods The 

 Windsor Review Selous and the Swans Installed in the 

 Sixth Form I read a Lesson Concerning my Duties 



HITHERTO, even the most virulent anti-gambler 

 would find it difficult to carp at my progress 

 in life, but the time had come when I was 

 practically out of control. Dear old Mr Arrowsmith, 

 who was to all intents and purposes my guardian, never 

 pretended for a moment to exercise any sort of authority 

 over me, and I cannot recall that he ever refused to send 

 money whenever I asked for it. As early as the spring 

 of 1867 I took to extending holidays by several weeks, 

 but, being attached to school and my friends there, I 

 was always careful to provide adequate excuses. It was 

 easy to get my old friend, Dr Ryott, to certify that I was 

 unfit to leave home for just as long as I wished to stay 

 there. The good man had a rooted belief that, but for 

 his watchful care over my childhood, I should not have 

 lived, and it was a simple matter to go to him, with a 

 doleful countenance, and he would at once certify that I 

 was ill. 



Some may think it strange that I stayed at school at 

 all, but one often sees a riderless horse in a steeplechase 

 do very much the same sort of thing. He carries on with 

 the rest of the field, sometimes missing a fence altogether, 

 sometimes going in front, sometimes dropping back, 

 but never quite abandoning the game. The last three 

 years of my school life were passed in a very similar 

 erratic fashion. 



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