106 THE COMPLETE SPORTSMAN 



might justly boast that few infants of his tender 

 years could express with such lucidity a desire 

 that the engines should be stopped, the lifeboat 

 launched, and the missing timepiece recovered. 

 At school the boy took every prize offered 

 for divinity and Scripture history; could reel 

 off a list of the Kings of Israel and Judah as 

 glibly as you or I can recite the names of our 

 modern patrons of the 

 Turf (and with some- 

 what similar results) ; 

 was able to distinguish 

 at a glance between 

 major and minor pro- 

 phets, Avithout reference 

 to any Biblical "Who's 

 Who " ; and seemed, 

 indeed, in every way 

 fitted for that career 

 of useful endeavour in 

 the Diplomatic Service 

 to which his parents had long ago mentally 

 assigned him. He failed, however, to pass the 

 qualifying examination: partly, I believe, owing 

 to the abnormal intelligence of his fellow-com- 

 petitors, and partly to prejudice on the part of 

 the examiners, v/ho resented his translation of 

 the French sentence, *'L\Anglais, avec son sang- 

 froid habituel," into: "The Englishman, with 



