Thus we managed things even better than if we had listened to another ingenious writer, with whose proposal we will close this topic.  It was this:  “Let two hundred bathing-machines be brought together from Llandudno and other watering-places within reach, and ranged along the beach.  Let one machine be assigned to each boy, and let them be filled up with book-shelves, table, chairs, &c.  Thus the whole difficulty will be solved in a moment.  And the plan has this further advantage, that when the time comes for returning to Uppingham, the bathing-machines would be simply formed in line, and driven across the country to Rutlandshire, and all further trouble in the way of furniture-vans and families-removing be cut away at one stroke.”

CHAPTER VII.—­THE COMMISSARIAT.

   To feed were best at home.

   MACBETH.

   [Greek verse]

   ILIAD IX.

   PRINCE HENRY. Doth it not show vilely in me to desire small beer?

   POINS. Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as to
   remember so weak a composition.

PRINCE HENRY. Belike then my appetite was not princely got; for, by my troth, I do now remember the poor creature, small beer. But, indeed, these humble considerations make me out of love with my greatness.

   2 HENRY IV.

“Who ought to take the command, in the event of anything happening to your lordship?” asked Wellington’s officers on an occasion in the Peninsular War.  “Beresford,” the great strategist answered, after reflection.  And then, in answer to their surprised looks:  “If it were a question of handling troops, some of you fellows might do as well, perhaps better than he; but what we now want is someone to feed our men.” {46}

This story, and the countenance of the epic and royal personages of our mottoes, is our excuse for passing on to treat of the ignoble topic of knives and forks, and to describe how three times a day our colony was fed.  It is a topic which could not be left outside a narrative which seeks to “show how fields were won.”

If our readers will follow the master of the week as he makes his round of the tea-tables at a quarter to seven on a winter evening, he will witness a cheerful scene not wanting in picturesqueness.  The vista of the corridor is filled with three very long and very narrow tables, and the boys of as many houses seated at them.  The subdued light, which streams from numerous but feeble oil-lamps through the atmosphere of fragrant vapour steamed up by the tea-urns, falls with Rembrandtesque contrast of light and shadow on the long ranks of faces.  There is that hum of quiet animation which seems always to exhale along with the aroma of the Chinese leaf.  From the urn, where the house matron mounts guard up to the