For cricket, and for diving, Ralph bore away the belt: Richard's middle-stump tottered before his ball, and he could seldom pick up more than three eggs underwater to Ralph's half-dozen.

He was beaten, too, in jumping and running.

Why will silly mortals strive to the painful pinnacles of championship?
Or why, once having reached them, not have the magnanimity and circumspection to retire into private life immediately?
Stung by his defeats, Richard sent one of his dependent Papworths to Poer Hall, with a challenge to Ralph Barthrop Morton; matching himself to swim across the Thames and back, once, trice, or thrice, within a less time than he, Ralph Barthrop Morton, would require for the undertaking.

It was accepted, and a reply returned, equally formal in the trumpeting of Christian names, wherein Ralph Barthrop Morton acknowledged the challenge of Richard Doria Feverel, and was his man.

The match came off on a midsummer morning, under the direction of Captain Algernon.