d gambolling very
much after the manner of Robinson Crusoe's cannibals. The bathers
occasionally look a great deal better out of their integuments than in
them. Not from this class, however, do your all-the-year-round bathers
come. The Arab is an exotic--a child of the Sun, loving not to disport
himself in water the temperature of which shocks his tentative
knuckles, as he dips them in the unaccustomed element. His wardrobe,
again, is too much after the fashion of that pertaining to Canning's
needy knife-grinder to make an al fresco toilette other than
embarrassing. From the all-the-year-round bathers, as a nucleus, there
has grown up, within the last few years, the Serpentine Swimming Club;
and on Christmas-day in the morning they have an annual match open to
all comers--though, it need scarcely be said, patronized only by those
whom, for brevity's sake, we may term all-rounders.

Now, I had often heard of this Christmas-day match, and as often, on
Christmas-eve, made up my mind to go; but the evening's resolution faded
away, as such resolutions have only too often been known to do, before
the morning's light. This year, however--principally, I believe, because
I had been up very late the previous night--I struggled out of bed
before dawn, and steered for the Serpentine. A crescent moon was
shining, and stars studded the clear spaces between ominous patches of
cloud. A raw, moist wind was blowing, and on the muddy streets were
evident traces of a recent shower. I had no notion that the gates of
Kensington Gardens were open so early; and the sensation was novel as I
threaded the devious paths in morning dawn, and saw the gas still alight
along the Bayswater Road. A solitary thrush was whistling his Christmas
carol as I struggled over the inundated sward; presently the sun threw a
few red streaks along the East, over the Abbey Tower; but, until I had
passed the Serpentine Bridge, not a single human being met my gaze.
There, however, I found some fifty men, mostly with a "sporting" look
about them. The ubiquitous boy was there, playing at some uncomfortable
game in the puddles round the seats. The inevitable dog stood pensively
by the diving board; and when, by-and-by straggling all-rounders came
and took their morning header, the quadruped rushed after them to the
very edge of the water, as though he had been a distinguished member of
the Humane Society. He shirked the element itself, however, as
religiously as though he