The Colonel was enjoying himself immensely, and I was gratified to see how much at home he had made himself. He found in Furness a very congenial spirit, Billy was a boy after his own heart, and the young ladies behind him were interesting enough to take quite a little of his attention. He was telling them something about a polo match in India when I interrupted him to point out the men going to their marks for the "hundred-yard dash." We could look along the splendid track with the narrow laneways made by the white cords. Hind of Oxford inside, then Quinlan with an "H" on his crimson jersey, then Thomas with the narrow stripes of dark blue, and outside Blount with a jersey of the same color and the "Y" on his breast. "Who wins here?" asked the Colonel. "I give it up," answered Tom; "this is a race." We could hear the starter's "Marks," "Set;" the wreath of smoke rose from his pistol, and before the sound reached us, they were off, Blount a bit the first, Hind and Quinlan close together, and Thomas a shade behind. Did Blount beat the pistol? I am not sure. He was certainly in the lead; then Quinlan came up, to be in turn collared by Thomas, who had a shade the best of it until the last few strides, when the big fellow in the crimson jersey made a supreme effort and shot by us, a winner by a foot. "Close work that," remarked Harding. "Yes," said Tom, "it was a close fit, and not much cloth left." When the American flag went up again, and the blackboard showed the ten seconds with no fraction to mar its symmetry, there was very hearty applause from the whole field. Even time in the "hundred"! Only the aristocracy belong here. This is where fractions tell, this race "that is run in a breath." There are thousands good for ten-two, tens are equal to the ten-one, but the men who can do the straight ten can be counted on the fingers of the hand, and even then the conditions must suit them. "Do you know," remarked the Colonel, with a far-away look in his eyes, "I can remember the day when I would have given a year of my life to have seen those figures after my name? I had a friend once who held the watch over me on a still June afternoon who showed the figure, but I never saw it again, and I fear that friendship made the watch stop a bit too soon." The "mile" was not a race at all. When Hunter of Cambridge romped in a winner by a good twenty yards, with Dawson of Oxford beating out Spitzer of Yale by a very determined finish, Tom declared that it was "a very pretty procession, with a big gap after the band wagon." Freemantle gave a beautiful example of pacemaking, and what Hunter might have done had he been forced is only guesswork. It now stood even again with a two to two, to which Oxford and Cambridge had each contributed a win, and Harvard two. Yale had not distinguished herself as yet; 1899 is certainly not Yale's year.