ans, burns as a bright spot in our
memory of those winter days.

Thus we managed things even better than if we had listened to another
ingenious writer, with whose proposal we will close this topic. It was
this: "Let two hundred bathing-machines be brought together from
Llandudno and other watering-places within reach, and ranged along the
beach. Let one machine be assigned to each boy, and let them be filled
up with book-shelves, table, chairs, &c. Thus the whole difficulty will
be solved in a moment. And the plan has this further advantage, that
when the time comes for returning to Uppingham, the bathing-machines
would be simply formed in line, and driven across the country to
Rutlandshire, and all further trouble in the way of furniture-vans and
families-removing be cut away at one stroke."

CHAPTER VII.--THE COMMISSARIAT.

_To feed were best at home_.

MACBETH.

[Greek verse]

ILIAD IX.

PRINCE HENRY. _Doth it not show vilely in me to desire small beer_?

POINS. _Why_, _a prince should not be so loosely studied as to
remember so weak a composition_.

PRINCE HENRY. _Belike then my appetite was not princely got_; _for_,
_by my troth_, _I do now remember the poor creature_, _small beer_.
_But_, _indeed_, _these humble considerations make me out of love with
my greatness_.

2 HENRY IV.

"Who ought to take the command, in the event of anything happening to
your lordship?" asked Wellington's officers on an occasion in the
Peninsular War. "Beresford," the great strategist answered, after
reflection. And then, in answer to their surprised looks: "If it were a
question of handling troops, some of you fellows might do as well,
perhaps better than he; but what we now want is someone to _feed_ our
men." {46}

This story, and the countenance of the epic and royal personages of our
mottoes, is our excuse for passing on to treat of the ignoble topic of
knives and forks, and to describe how three times a day our colony was
fed. It is a topic which could not be left outside a narrative which
seeks to "show how fields were won."

If our readers will follow the master of the week as he makes his round
of the tea-tables at a quarter to seven on a winter evening, he will
witness a cheerful scene not wanting in picturesqueness. The vista of
the corridor is filled with three very long and very narrow tables, and
the boys of as many houses seated at them. The subdued