He has not, at Cambridge, obtained a rowing blue, but "had it not been for a most unfortunate attack of scarlet fever-----" He was President of the Clinton St.Mary Cricket Club, 1890 (matches played, six; lost, five; drawn, one) knew how to slash the ball across the net at a tennis garden party, always read the prayers in church as though he were imploring God to keep a straighter bat and improve His cut to leg, and had a passion for knocking nails into walls, screwing locks into doors, and making chicken runs.

He was, he often thanked his stars, a practical Realist, and his wife, who was fat, stupid, and in a state of perpetual wonder, used to say of him, "If Will hadn't been a clergyman he would have made _such_ an engineer.

If God had blessed us with a boy, I'm sure he would have been something scientific.

Will's no dreamer." Mr.Lasher was kindly of heart so long as you allowed him to maintain that the world was made for one type of humanity only.

He was as breezy as a west wind, loved to bathe in the garden pond on Christmas Day ("had to break the ice that morning"), and at penny readings at the village schoolroom would read extracts from "Pickwick," and would laugh so heartily himself that he would have to stop and wipe his eyes.