THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 123 



" When Hobart left school, at Christmas, the doctor 

 and his tutor, from a knowledge of the large possessions 

 that awaited him on his majority, of course expected a 

 very handsome pouch ; and it is not improbable that the 

 amount had been duly communicated to, and approved 

 of by, the latter. Whether the doctor was popular with 

 Hobart, is extremely problematical ; but that a certain 

 person, named Jack Hall, was highly so, there was no 

 room to doubt. The money for the pouch, then, arrived 

 in a letter to Hobart himself, the distribution of which 

 involved him in no small difficulty. The result, how- 

 ever, was this : On the one hand, the chief educational 

 assistance he had received from the doctor consisted of 

 manifold unmerciful floggings, and without being much 

 the better for them ; whereas, on the other, through the 

 affectionate assiduities of Jack Hall, he had been rendered 

 a match for any man on the Thames, in the use of a 

 casting-net, or the management of a boat or a punt ; and 

 could heel and handle a cock with all the dexterity of 

 a professor. In point of fact, it was a simple case of 

 flogging versus cock-fighting, net-casting, and boating. 

 Taking into consideration, then, the ' value received ' 

 from either party, and, after the most mature deliberation, 

 Hobart decided that the money ought to be divided in 

 equal portions between the three the doctor, the private 

 tutor, and the professor of arts and sciences, which Jack 

 Hall must be allowed to be. And now for the finale. 

 This upright division of the money would never have 

 been known to the family had they not chanced to have 

 been made acquainted with it through an unlooked-for 

 channel, when all was put straight between the parties. 

 The deficiency to the pedagogues was rectified, as it 

 ought to have been ; but Jack retained his share, on the 

 well-known principle of his profession that all was fish 

 which came into his net. The former the pedagogues 

 returned suitable acknowledgments for all favours. The 

 doctor presented Hobart with a splendidly bound edition 

 of the moral Lucretius ; and Jack Hall invited him, with 

 his friends, to a flash dinner ' up town.' :! 



" Capital ! " exclaimed the Captain ; " we had none 

 of that work at Harrow ; but I think, from my experience 

 of them, most schoolmasters would get monkey's allow- 

 ance if left to the generosity of their pupils alone to 

 reward them, although I do not see why they should ; as 



