CHAPTER XVI 



The College Athletics Training round the Quad The Half-mile 

 Handicap and its Lesson Lord Elgin again to the Fore 

 Change of Rooms Vicars and Warner The Cellar and the 

 Outrageous Picture Hanging the Picture My Absence 

 Next Day The other Picture-hangers "sent down '- Extra- 

 ordinary Interview with the Master I escape Scot-free 

 Rose of Athol and the Pari-Mutuels Prince Charlie Boxing 

 at Blake's George Faber Improvement in the Cardinal 



THE last letter quoted in the preceding chapter 

 mentions the College Athletics and that I was 

 entered for the half-mile handicap. I never 

 regarded this very seriously, but we were always pretty 

 fit, what with boxing and fencing in afternoons when 

 there was not hunting ; and a fortnight or so before the 

 time Smith used to run with me round the quad about 

 ten or eleven o'clock P.M. over what we had made out to 

 be half-a-mile. Probably there could be no more in- 

 judicious method of training after dinner and wine, 

 which latter was never knocked off but we used to 

 struggle desperately in those runs, for it so happened that 

 he had a good turn of speed, but could not really stay 

 half-a-mile, while I could stay right enough but had no 

 speed. Thus it happened that if I went for all I was 

 worth all the way I could beat him by a few yards ; and if 

 I relaxed even for a few strides he would always catch 

 and beat me for speed. There was a good deal to learn 

 from this as to what we often see in horse-racing, when, 

 for example, a speedy horse wins over a long distance in a 

 slow-run race. Smith and I came positively to dislike 

 running round the quad, for though we would start by 

 agreeing to go at a fair pace and not race we always did 

 race when once started. 



168 



