128 " MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE ! " 



for it though I am 10 lb. lighter than I was when I left home. 

 The VI th actually beat the School this time. 



Those two matches " the Saturday before " were my 

 first after that long period of idleness. One was in the 

 morning and I was captain of our " Below Caps " Twenty 

 against another house, and it was a pretty fierce game. 

 In the afternoon the Vlth against the School commenced, 

 and there were either three or four days of it before it was 

 finished. We also played the House Match referred to, 

 and altogether it was a somewhat crucial method of getting 

 fit from a state of absolute unfitness. 



On the top of it all, and without any sort of preparation 

 I took it into my head that I would go in for a studentship 

 at Christ Church, as four were falling vacant, and I find 

 the following letter of about a fortnight's later date : 



I shall be going to try for a Studentship at Christ Church. 

 There is no doubt that I ought to get one ; but unfortunately I 

 cannot work like I used. Lee Warner (our tutor) remarks that 

 I shall have thrown it away if I don't get it. However, let things 

 take their course I have got my Cap and been to the dog show. 

 That's all I care for at present. 



In another letter of the same period there is the 

 following : 



Everything is much changed since I was here ; several new 

 schools have arisen. All the masters have married. There have 

 been no less than five weddings. The new schools are hideous 

 erections in my opinion. . . . The continued toil and early rising 

 of this place is very irksome to me. 



Then came that visit to Oxford, as to which I wrote : 



I came back from Oxford yesterday, having been there since 

 Monday. I have not heard the result yet but shall do so to- 

 morrow. There is not the slightest chance of me having got one 

 now, as, though I was in the first lot of six, the examiners couldn't 

 make up their minds, and so settled to give a mathematical paper 

 to decide it ; and, of course I left them when they became so 

 unreasonable as to let mathematics have anything to do with a, 

 classical studentship. However, it doesn't matter in the least. 



