Dulwich, and he would go over every phase
of the play with us, inviting comments and contributing his own. He
was always severe in his condemnation of anything in the shape of
"gallery play," his constant maxim being that the player should
subordinate himself entirely to the side. It was his conviction that
unselfishness was stimulated by football. The amateur athlete, who
forgot himself in the team of which he was a part, and who played and
worked hard for the honour of the game, and without thought of
personal advantage or reward, was the god of his idolatry. Fond as he
was of sport, and highly as he appreciated it as a discipline for
character, he held that the cult of athletics could be overdone, and
that to make a business of what should only be a pastime was a grave
blunder. In an essay which he wrote on "Sport," he characterises the
professional athlete as a man who is engaged "in the vilest of
trades." "Life," he wrote, "is made up of varied interests, and man
has serious work to do in the world. Excess in sport--or in anything
else--puts the notes of the great common chord of life out of
harmony."

CHAPTER IV

CRICKET

_Your cricketer, right English to the core,
Still loves the man best he has licked before._

TOM TAYLOR in _Punch_.

Though, as has been said, Paul had no skill in cricket, he was jealous
of the cricket reputation of the College. He knew the game thoroughly.
His cricket "Bible," if I may use the expression, was Prince
Ranjitsinhji's excellent "Jubilee Book of Cricket." He often
accompanied the 1st XI for out-of-town matches, to act as scorer or
reporter. His cricket reports in _The Alleynian_ make racy reading.
The following is taken from a picturesquely-written account of a
victory over Brighton at Brighton in May, 1914:

When A. E. R. Gilligan appeared at the wicket things became more
than merry. He was in fine fettle, and from the first made light
of the bowling, hitting all round the wicket with immense vigour.
The gem of the day was his treatment of D. S. Johnson's fifth
over. We seem to recollect reading in our childhood a work of P.
G. Wodehouse's, in which he remarks that "when a slow bowler
begins to bowl fast, it is as well to be batting if you can
manage it." Well, Johnson was--we think--originally a slow
bowler, and he tried to bowl fast. The result was that traffic
had to be