to add that, though we had been travelling together all day, I did not know my friend’s name.  He tore a leaf out of a pocket-book, scrawled on it, in a backward-sloping hand, “H.  Aulif,” and handed it to me, saying, “I do not add an address, for I shall be moving about.  But I will write you a line very soon, and fix a day for my visit.”  Just then the train stopped at the foot of the Hill, and, as I was fighting my way through the welter of boys and luggage on the platform, I caught sight of a smiling face and a waved hand at the window of the carriage which I had just quitted.

The beginning of a new school-quarter, the crowd of fresh faces, the greetings of old friends, and a remove into a much more difficult Form, rather distracted my mind from the incidents of my journey, to which it was recalled by the receipt of a note from Mr. Aulif, saying that he would be at Harrow by 2.30 on Saturday afternoon, the 21st of September.  I met him at the station, and found him even pleasanter than I expected.  He extolled Public Schools to the skies, and was sure that our English virtues were in great part due to them.  Of Harrow he spoke with peculiar admiration as the School of Sheridan, of Peel, of Palmerston.  What was our course of study?  What our system of discipline?  What were our amusements?  The last question I was able to answer by showing him both the end of cricket and the beginning of football, for both were being played; and, as we mounted the Hill towards the School and the Spire, he asked me if we had any other amusements.  Fives or racquets he did not seem to count.  Did we run races?  Had we any gymnastics?  (In those days we had not.) Did we practise rifle-shooting?  Every boy ought to learn to use a rifle.  The Volunteer movement was a national glory.  Had we any part in it?

The last question touched me on the point of honour.  In those days Harrow was the best School in England for rifle-shooting.  In the Public Schools contest at Wimbledon we carried off the Ashburton Challenge Shield five times in succession, and in 1865 and 1866 we added to it Lord Spencer’s Cup for the best marksman in the school-teams.  All this, and a good deal more to the same effect, I told Mr. Aulif with becoming spirit, and proudly led the way to our “Armoury.”  This grandly named apartment was in truth a dingy cellar under the Old Schools, and held only a scanty store of rifles (for the corps, though keen, was not numerous).  Boyhood is sensitive to sarcasm, and I felt an uncomfortable twinge as Mr. Aulif glanced round our place of arms and said, “A gallant corps, I am sure, if not numerically strong.  But this is your School corps only.  Doubtless the citizens of the place also have their corps?” Rather wishing to get my friend away from a scene where he obviously was not impressed, and fearing that perhaps he might speak lightly of the Fourth Form Room, even though its panels bear the carved name of BYRON, I seized the opening afforded by the