o make a hit, and
Sholto and the boy set off after the ball, while the striker leaned with
elegant _nonchalance_ upon his bat, and Bill mopped his face, and gave
vent to a complimentary variety of "Diawl." It was really a pity to
interrupt the performance; but we did at last. Bill looked rather
ashamed of his share in the business when he saw "Mishtar," as he called
Hanmer; but Dawson's self-complacency and good-humour carried him
through everything. "By Jove," said Willingham to him, "no wonder you
improve in your style of play; Bill has no bad notion of bowling, has
he?" "Why, no; he does very well for practice; and he is to have
half-a-crown if he gets me out." "Bowl at his legs, Bill," said
Willingham aside, "he's out, you know, if you hit them." "Nay," said
Bill, with a desponding shake of the head, "she squat 'n hard on the
knee now just, and made 'n proper savage, but I wasn't get nothing for
that."

Positively we did more in the way of reading after the boating and the
cricket began, than while we continued in a state of vagrant idleness,
without a fixed amusement of any kind. In the first place, it was
necessary to conciliate Hanmer by some show of industry in the morning,
in order to keep him in good humour for the cricket in the evening; for
he was decidedly the main hope of our having anything like a decent
eleven. Secondly, the Phillipses took to dining early at home, and
coming to practice with us in the evening, instead of dropping down the
river every breezy morning, and either idling in our rooms, or beguiling
us out mackerel-fishing or flapper-shooting in their boat. And thirdly,
it became absolutely necessary that we should do something, if class
lists and examiners had any real existence, and were not mere bugbears
invented by "alma mater" to instil a wholesome terror into her unruly
progeny. Really, when one compared our actual progress with the Augean
labour which was to be gone through, it required a large amount of faith
to believe that we were all "going up for honours in October."

We spent a very pleasant morning at Llyn-eiros, the den of "Tiger
Jones." He obtained this somewhat appalling sobriquet from a habit of
spinning yarns, more marvellous than his unwarlike neighbours were
accustomed to, of the dangers encountered in his Indian sports; and one
in particular, of an extraordinary combat between his "chokedar" and a
tiger--whether the gist of the story lay in the tiger's eating the
choke