76 THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



uncle ; something more than meets the ear. " Come, tell 

 me at once, Francis, what is the reason for your wishing 

 to go by that Birmingham coach ? " 



" Why, to tell you the truth, uncle," answered Francis, 

 " Sir John told me I should see the famous Jack Bailey, 

 who drives it, and who taught him to drive four horses, 

 when he was at Eton." 



"Well, Frank," continued the uncle, "I see no great 

 harm in this request of yours ; but, as Sir John was an 

 Etonian himself, did he recommend nothing to your 

 notice that might be more serviceable to you than a 

 Birmingham coachman ? " 



" He didn't say much about anything else," replied 

 Frank, " except that, when I got old enough, and wanted 

 a good horse or a tandem, on a whole holiday, he would 

 write a line to recommend me to Stevens, who used to let 

 him have some good ones." 



" Black Monday " having at length arrived, Frank and 

 his brother were placed on the front roof seat of the 

 " Prince of Wales " coach, the footman having been 

 despatched by the Windsor and Eton " True Blue " with 

 the luggage. 



On descending from the coach, at Slough, Frank having 

 slipped half a crown into Jack Bailey's hands, over and 

 above what his brother had given him when he paid the 

 fare, shortly arrived at his "agreeable seat in Bucks," as 

 he used afterwards to call Eton school, where their tutor 

 having soon found that his elder pupil had looked into 

 Ovid and Virgil, and had not looked into them in vain, 

 recommended his being placed in the middle remove of 

 the fourth form, and then proceeded to examine the 

 pretensions of our hero. Finding him all but innocent of 

 the Greek tongue, his location was soon determined upon. 

 On his informing his tutor, however, that he had begun 

 making nonsense verses, a page of " Caesar's Com- 

 mentaries" was put before him, when he set to work 

 much in the same manner that the young aspirant in 

 anatomy does, when he anticipates phlebotomizing, by 

 opening the veins of full-grown cabbages. 



There is not, perhaps, in the whole course of man's life, 

 a more remarkable change than the removal of the child 

 from the luxury and freedom of a wealthy home, to the 

 frugal diet and strict subordination of a public school : 

 from the tenderness of parents, and the obsequiousness of 



