up excitedly, and asked the Prince to decide the matter.  The Prince had not seen the incident, and of course declined, as no doubt he would have done under any circumstances, to give an opinion.  It was impossible to clear the ground and continue the play that evening, and stumps were drawn for the day.  Next morning the fielding side offered the disgusted batsman to continue his innings, but he decided to play the game and abide by the umpire’s decision.  I forget whether Eton or Harrow was in the field at the time, and after this lapse of years it does not matter.  The headmaster always sent a notice round, just before the match, to be read to every form, that the boys were desired not to indulge in any “ironical cheering” at Lord’s; this was his euphemism for what we called “chaff,” and I fear that on this occasion the warning was disregarded even more completely than usual.

As a child, I generally paid a visit to London with my brothers and sisters during the Christmas holidays to see a pantomime, and I remember an occasion when returning from Covent Garden Theatre after a matinee we all—­nine of us—­walked over Waterloo Bridge and paid nine halfpennies toll—­a circumstance that had never happened before, and never happened again.

In the days before the railway was made between Alton and Farnham the old bailiff on the Will Hall Farm at Alton, who, though quite an elderly man, had never visited London, expressed a wish to visit it for once in his life.  His master gave him a holiday and paid his expenses, and the old man drove the ten miles to Farnham Station.  Arrived in London he started to walk over Waterloo Bridge, but the further he got the more astonished he became at the traffic, and began to wonder what “fair” all the people could be going to.  Feeling very much out of his element he reached the Strand, and looking up and down he saw still greater crowds of passengers and the unending procession of ’buses, cabs, and vans.  He became so confused and alarmed that he turned round, went straight back to Waterloo Station, and left by the first available train.  He came home disgusted with London, and in an account of the traffic and the people, ended by saying, “I never saw such a place in my life; I couldn’t even get a bit of anything to eat until I got back to Farnham.”  This old man was called “the Great Western”:  I suppose his bulk and commanding figure were reminiscent of the power and energy of one of the locomotives on that line.  He wore a very wide-brimmed straw hat, and a vast expanse of waistcoat with sleeves, without a coat over it, and he had a very determined and masterful habit of speech.  Caldecott’s sketch of Ready-Money Jack in Bracebridge Hall always recalls him to my mind.  He must have been born before the opening of the nineteenth century, for he could remember the stirring events of its early years.  Any remark about unusual weather made in his hearing was at once put out of court by his