m your consideration; remember what centrifugal
force is, Buller, and it will give you confidence."

"Oh, I have confidence enough!" said Buller; "it's the power of getting
on to the edge without overbalancing myself that I want, and all that
rot about the laws of gravity won't help me."

"I fancied they wouldn't, but Penryhn asked for a scientific wrinkle.
If you want a practical one, keep the head and body erect, never looking
down at the ice; when you strike out with the right foot, look over the
right shoulder; body and foot are sure to follow the eye, and clasp your
hands behind you, or keep them at your sides; do anything but sway them
about. That's it, you got on to the outside edge then; now boldly with
the left foot, and look over the left shoulder. Never mind (Buller had
come a cropper); you fell then because you did not let yourself go, but
when your skate took the outside edge you tried to recover. You lacked
confidence, in short, in the centrifugal force, and bothered yourself,
instinctively, without knowing it, with the laws of gravity. Try again;
you stick to that. Rigidity. Right foot--look over right shoulder, not
too far, just a turn of the head. Left foot--look over left shoulder.
There, you did not fall then. Trust to the centrifugal force, that's
the thing," and he swept away with a long easy roll.

"A capital coach he would make," said Penryhn, admiringly. "He always
tells you just what you want to know without bothering."

"Yes," said Buller, "I have asked him things in lessons once or twice,
and he made it all as clear as possible, but I didn't know he was good
for anything else. This is a grand idea for learning to skate, though;
look here, this is all right, is it not?"

"Yes, you have got it now; lean outwards a little more, and don't bend
forward. The weight should be on the centre of the foot."

There are few sensations more delightful than the first confident sweep
on the outside edge, with the blade biting well into the clear smooth
ice, and Buller felt as if he could never have enough of it, and he kept
on, trying to make larger and larger segments of a circle, not heeding
the falls he got for the next half-hour, when it was time to be getting
back, and he had reluctantly to take his skates off, and jog home at a
trot. The next chance he had he was back to the ice and at it again.

Others who had got as far as he had began practising threes, or trying
to skate backwards,