“Don’t know what we’re coming to, TOBY,” he said, “when one almost goes on his knees to ask a man to charge him with deliberate falsification, and he won’t do it.  Thought better of COMPTON; see him in his true light now.” Business done.—­A good deal.

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A SPORTING STYLE.

Our next example of a true sporting style will be constructed on the basis of Nos. 11, 12, and 13 of the Rules.  These, it will be remembered, require the writer to refer to “the good old days;” to be haughty and contemptuous, with a parade of rugged honesty; to be vain and offensive, and to set himself up as an infallible judge of every branch of sport and athletics.  This particular variety of style is always immensely effective.  All the pot—­boys of the Metropolis, most of the shady bookmakers, and a considerable proportion of the patrons of sport swear by it, and even the most thoughtful who read it cannot fail to be impressed by its splendour.  This style deals in paragraphs. Second Example.—­Event to be commented on:  A Regatta.

I am led to believe by column upon column of wishy-washy twaddle in the morning papers, that Henley Regatta has actually taken place.  The effete parasites of a decayed aristocracy who direct this gathering endeavour year after year to make the world believe that theirs is the only meeting at which honour has the least chance of bursting into flower.  I have my own opinions on this point.  Really, these tenth transmitters of foolish faces become more and more brazen in their attempts to palm off their miserable two-penny-halfpenny, tin-pot, one-horse Regatta as the combination of all the cardinal virtues.

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These gentry presume to dictate to rowing men what shall constitute the status of the Amateur.  For my own part (and the world will acknowledge that I have done some rowing in my time) I prefer the straight-forward conduct of any passing rag-and-bone merchant to the tricks of the high and mighty champions of the amateur qualification in whose nostrils the mere name of professional oarsman seems to stink.  These pampered denizens of the amateur hothouse would, doubtless, wear a kid-glove before they ventured to shake hands with one who, like myself, despises them and their absurd pretensions.

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As for the rowing, it was fantastic.  I wasn’t there.  Indeed, those who know me, would never think so meanly of me as to suppose that I would attend this Regatta pour rire.  But I know enough to be sure that the Eights were slow, the Fours deficient in pace, the pairs on the minus side of nothing, and the scullers preposterous.  Rowing must be in a bad way when it can boast no better champions (save the mark!) than those who last week aired their incompetence, and impeded the traffic of the people upon the Thames.  Time was when an oarsman was an oarsman, but now he is a miserable cross between a Belgravian flunkey and a riverside tout.  Which is all I care to say on an unsavoury matter.