thirsty man must be refreshed, and a drink at Dean's Yard pump was hardly good form. Drunkenness was not a school vice, and I cannot remember a single case of a boy being punished for it.

Another shop was just out of bounds, near Westminster Hospital; the name was Dobbs, a hosier and glover. Here we got our jerseys, and pink handkerchiefs and the straw hats with pink ribbon, and even the pea-jackets called 'shags,' with the brass buttons with R.S.W. (Regia Schola Westmonastriensis), all these forming the rig-out for a member of the first eight. I suppose he also supplied the uniform of the cricket eleven.

I must now mention the College servants and men employed in connection with the school. First comes College John.' His surname was Lloyd; he acted as general servant in College, door-keeper and locker-up at lock-hours, made the rods, and superintended the cleaning of school and College. He was one of a succession of College Johns, the office having been held in that family for generations. I have a print of an older College John of my father's time-I believe an ancestor of our John. Then there was a nice old fellow called Stoker,' surname unknown, whose 'hole' was at the back of the wooden-racquet court, by the entrance to College; here he stoked the school fires. He knew us all by name. Some years after I left I met him outside school. I said, 'Holloa, Stoker! you don't know who I am?' He looked at me for a moment, and said, 'Why, you're Markham-old Markham.' He was quite right, for I had a brother there with me for a year

who left early to join the navy. Then there was' Fairy.' His surname was Mentor or Minton, a tall, active, slight-built man with a cane. He was a sort of con

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stable to the Dean and Chapter, who kept order in the cloisters and Dean's Yard, and was the terror of all 'skies'—i.e., the rough element of the non-Westminster population. He always perambulated the street round green' during football hours. Another old character was 'Ballman'-name again unknown. He used to stand at the corner of the wire-racquet court, by the ball-fag, with a white canvas bag containing balls, and generally a wire-i.e., catgut-strung

-racquet or a wooden racquet. He also mended our broken strings and took orders for new racquets, but I do not think he made the racquets himself. A poor old idiot named Boots' used to look in occasionally; why he was allowed to prowl about I do not know, but he had the entrée. He would eat anything you gave him-newspapers, tobacco, potatopeelings nothing came amiss to him. He had also the power of having epileptic fits, price one shilling, when he would roll on the ground and foam at the mouth, a disgusting spectacle. I must complete this list by the men at ‘fields'-i.e., cricket-and the two 'Jacks' on the water. The keeper of the ground at 'fields'-i.e., Vincent Square-was old Bentley. He had a house by the entrance, and had to keep the pitch in order, do umpire, etc. He was too old for cricket, but had been a player in his day, and could talk about it still; a portly figure, and I think he wore a tall white hat and green coat when umpire and on gala-days.

He

had a son, young Bentley, who acted as a second professional to the school, and helped his father with the ground, a man about thirty-five; he was a fairly good bowler.

The two 'Jacks' are so intimately connected with the water and our doings thereon that their description must be reserved for the chapters on 'Water,' i.e., rowing.

The bounds at Westminster would have been very difficult to beat.' The Poets' Corner boundary was accurate enough, except that Westminster Hall and the Houses of Parliament were considered in bounds.' Towards the Sanctuary the boundary was distinct— i.e., the Dean's Yard arch, with a prescriptive right to go to Dobbs's the hosier's; but at the back of College Street bounds were most vague; there was, indeed, no settled boundary. You could make the cross-cut by St. John's Church to the horse-ferry (en route by the ferry to Noulton the boat-builder's, near Lambeth Church), or on up by Milbank Penitentiary to Vauxhall Bridge. You could go up to Vincent Square for cricket, and wander about the streets in that direction; but there was a short way to 'fields,' which was distinctly 'out of bounds,' leading through some very slummy streets, now much altered, if not swept away, by the broad sweep of Victoria Street and the streets connected with it. It always seemed to me that the whole of the respectable part of the town of London was out of bounds, and all the slums were in bounds. Within bounds the town boys, except the Sixth Form, always walked about without hats;