how well he did
everything!--does still for the matter of that, I believe. Take it that
he condescends to play cricket! He never scores less than a hundred--does
not know how to score less than a hundred, wonders how it could be done,
supposing, for example, you had an appointment and wanted to catch an
early train. I used to play cricket myself, but I could always stop at
ten or twenty. There have been times when I have stopped at even less.

It is the same with everything he puts his hand to. Either he does not
care for boating at all, or, as a matter of course, he pulls stroke in
the University Boat-race; and then takes the train on to Henley and wins
the Diamond Sculls so easily that it hardly seems worth while for the
other fellow to have started. Were I living in Novel-land, and had I
entered for the Diamond Sculls, I should put it to my opponent before the
word was given to us to go.

"One minute!" I should have called out to him. "Are you the hero of this
novel, or, like myself, only one of the minor characters? Because, if
you are the hero you go on; don't you wait for me. I shall just pull as
far as the boathouse and get myself a cup of tea."

Because it always seems to be his Day.

There is no sense of happy medium about the hero of the popular novel. He
cannot get astride a horse without its going off and winning a
steeplechase against the favourite. The crowd in Novel-land appears to
have no power of observation. It worries itself about the odds,
discusses records, reads the nonsense published by the sporting papers.
Were I to find myself on a racecourse in Novel-land I should not trouble
about the unessential; I should go up to the bookie who looked as if he
had the most money, and should say to him:

"Don't shout so loud; you are making yourself hoarse. Just listen to me.
Who's the hero of this novel? Oh, that's he, is it? The heavy-looking
man on the little brown horse that keeps coughing and is suffering
apparently from bone spavin? Well, what are the odds against his winning
by ten lengths? A thousand to one! Very well! Have you got a
bag?--Good. Here's twenty-seven pounds in gold and eighteen shillings in
silver. Coat and waistcoat, say another ten shillings. Shirt and
trousers--it's all right, I've got my pyjamas on underneath--say seven
and six. Boots--we won't quarrel--make it five bob. That's twenty-nine
pounds and sixpence, isn't it? In addition here's a mortgag