The training dinners furnished the really memorable hours of the day. A half-pint of "Burton bitter" was a necessity, and a pint merely rations. If one preferred, he might drink Burgundy _ad lib._, or Scotch and soda. After trials there was champagne. When I told the fellows that in America our relaxation consists in ice-cream for Sunday dinner, they set me down as a humorist. After dinner, instead of coffee and tobacco, we used to go out to the West Pier, which was a miniature Coney Island, and amuse ourselves with the various attractions. The favorite diversion was seeing the Beautiful Living Lady Cremated. The attraction was the showman, who used to give an elaborate oration in Lancashire brogue. Every word of it was funny, but especially the closing sentence: "The Greeks 'ad a ancient custom of porun' a liebation on the cinders of the departud, which custom, gentlemen, we omits." We used to laugh so heartily at this that the showman would join in, and even the beautiful living lady would snicker companionably, as she crawled away beneath the stage. If the reader is unable to see the fun of it, there is no help for him--except, perhaps, an English training dinner. The rest of the evenings we used to spend in strolling about among the crowd, breathing the salt air, and listening to the music. We did not lack companionship, for the Oxford and Cambridge cricket elevens were at Brighton, and the entire Cambridge athletic team. Many of the cricketers, and not a few of the Cambridge athletes--whom the Oxford men called "Cantabs," and sometimes even "Tabs"--paraded the place puffing bulldog pipes. The outward relationship between the rival teams was simply that of man to man. If one knew a Cambridge man he joined him, and introduced the fellows he happened to be walking with. One day the Cambridge president talked frankly about training, urging us to take long walks, and inviting us to go with his men. The only reason we did not go was that our day for walking happened to be different from theirs. The days on which we did our track work we spent largely in London, at the Queen's Club grounds, in order to get a general sense of the track and of the conditions under which the sports were to take place. Sometimes, however, we ran at Preston Park, on the outskirts of Brighton.