I thought the time would never come, and was in positive despair when on the day before it a little white cloud ventured to appear in the blue sky.

A wet day, so I thought, would have been as great a calamity as losing the whole circle of my relatives, and almost as bad as having my favourite dog stolen, or my fishing-rod smashed; and I made a regular fool of myself in the morning of the eventful day by getting up first at two a.m., then at three, then at four, and four or five times more, to take observations out of the window, till at last my bedfellow declared he would stand it no longer, and that since I was up, I should stay up.
Ah! he was an unsympathetic duffer, and knew nothing of the raptures of winning a three-legged race.
Well, the day was a splendid one after all--a little hot, perhaps, but the ground was in grand order, and hosts of people would be sure to turn up.

My race yoke-fellow and I went out quite early for a final spin over the course, and found one or two of the more diligent of our schoolfellows taking a similar advantage of the "lie-abeds." Of course, as _we_ were of opinion that the three-legged race was the most important and attractive of all the day's contests, we paid very little heed to what others were doing, but sought out a retired corner for ourselves, where, after tying our inside legs together, and putting our arms round one another's necks in the most approved fashion, we set to and tore along as fast as we could, and practised starts and falls, and pick-ups and spurts, and I don't know what else, till we felt that if, after all, we were to be beaten, it would not be our faults.

With which comfortable reflection we loosed our bonds and strolled back to breakfast.
Here, of course, the usual excitement prevailed, and one topic engrossed all the conversation.

I sat between a fellow who was in for the Junior 100 yards, and another who was down for the "hurdles." Opposite me was a hero whom every one expected to win in throwing the cricket-ball, and next to him a new boy who had astonished every one by calmly putting his name down for the mile race before he had been two hours at Parkhurst.
In such company you may fancy our meal was a lively one, and, as most of us were in training, a very careful one.
The first race was to be run at twelve, and we thought it a great hardship that the lower school was ordered to attend classes on this of all days from nine to eleven.