Now I am older, it dawns on me that this was a most wholesome regulation; for had we small chaps been allowed to run riot all the morning, we should have been completely done up, and fit for nothing when the races really began.

We did not do much work, I am afraid, at our desks that morning, and the masters were not particularly strict, for a wonder.

The one thing we had to do was to keep our seats and restrain our ardour, and that was no easy task.
Eleven came at last, and off we rushed to the mysteries of the toilet.
What would athletic sports be like without flannel shirts and trousers, or ribbons and canvas shoes?
At any rate, we believed in the importance of these accessories, and were not long in arraying ourselves accordingly.

I could not help noticing, however, as we sallied forth into the field, that fine feathers do not always make fine birds.

There was Tom Sampson, for instance, the biggest duffer that ever thought he could run a step, got up in the top of the fashion, in bran-new togs, and a silk belt, and the most gorgeous of scarlet sashes across his shoulders; while Hooker, who was as certain as Greenwich time to win the quarter-mile, had on nothing but his old (and not very white) cricket clothes, and no sash at all.