l in life, and with the whole-hearted
powers of enjoyment of boyhood. A school-song set to a captivating
waltz-lilt record the charms of Ducker. One verse of it,

"Oh! the effervescing tingle,
How it rushes in the veins!
Till the water seems to mingle
With the pulses and the brains,"

exactly expresses the reason why, as a boy, I loved Ducker so.

Unfortunately, I never played cricket for Harrow at "Lords," as my two
brothers George and Ernest did. My youngest brother would, I think,
have made a great name for himself as a cricketer, had not the fairies
endowed him at his birth with a fatal facility for doing everything
easily. As the result of this versatility, his ambitions were
continually changing. He accordingly abandoned cricket for steeplechase
riding, at which he distinguished himself until politics ousted
steeplechase riding. After some years, politics gave place to golf and
music, which were in their turn supplanted by photography. He then
tried writing a few novels, and very successful some of them were,
until it finally dawned on him that his real vocation in life was that
of a historian. My brother was naturally frequently rallied by his
family on his inconstancy of purpose, but he pleaded in extenuation
that versatility had very marked charms of its own. He produced one day
a copy of verses, written in the Gilbertian metre, to illustrate his
mental attitude, and they strike me as so neatly worded, that I will
reproduce them in full.

"THE CURSE OF VERSATILITY"

"It is possible the student of Political Economy
Might otherwise have cultivated Fame,
And the Scientist whose energies are given to Astronomy
May sacrifice a literary name.
In the Royal Academician may be buried a facility
For prosecuting Chemical Research,
But he knows that if he truckles to the Curse of Versatility,
Competitors will leave him in the lurch.

"If an eminent physician should develop a proclivity
For singing on the operatic stage,
He will find that though his patients may apparently forgive
it, he
Will temporal'ly cease to be the rage,
And the lawyer who depreciates his logical ability
And covets a poetical renown,
Will discover on his Circuit that the Curse of Versatility
Has limited the office of his gown.

"The costermonger yonder, if he had the opportunity,
Might rival the political career
Of the orator who poses a