There is only one other thing necessary, and then you may consider yourself safe as a schoolboy with the seat of his trousers full of the dormitory towels: and that is either a stout elastic ring round your wrist--a ring as thick as your thumb--or a good long gauntlet. I rather recommend the ring as interfering less with the freedom of your hand, and as protecting more effectually that weak spot in your wrist where the big veins are. If a blow catches you squarely across this spot, when it is unprotected, you may expect your right hand to lose its cunning for a good many minutes. By the way, it is as well to see that the collar of your jacket is sufficiently high and well supplied with buttons, otherwise there is apt to be a dangerous gap between the shoulder and the bottom of the helmet. One last word: if you see that the point of your stick is broken, don't go on playing; stop at once. A split ash-plant is as dangerous as a buttonless foil, and just as likely as not to go through the meshes of a mask, and blind where you only meant to score. As the chief fault of single-stick as a training for the use of the sabre is that the stick does not properly represent the weight of the weapon which it simulates, it is not a bad thing to accustom yourself to using the heaviest sticks in the gymnasium. This will strengthen your wrist, and when in a competition you get hold of a light ash-plant, you will be all the quicker for your practice with a heavier stick. A cut on p. 57 by Mr. Graham Simpson represents the way to acknowledge a hit, and a cut by the same artist on p. 61 illustrates, as far as we know it, the less careful method of our forefathers. The use of the elbow to shield the head, though common in the contests on the village greens, was in its way no doubt more foolish than our pads; for though a sturdy yokel might take a severe blow from a cudgel on his bare arm, without wincing, the toughest arm in England would have had no chance against a sabre. [Illustration: Fig. 25.--Old style.] POSITION. Having now secured the necessary implements, let us begin to learn how to use them. First, as to the stick, which, you will remember, represents for the present a sabre, and consequently a weapon of which one edge only is sharpened. In order that every blow dealt with the stick should be dealt with what represents the sharp or "true" edge of the sword, it is only necessary to see that you get a proper grip of your weapon in the first instance. To do this shut your fingers round the hilt, and straighten your thumb along the back of the hilt, thus bringing your middle knuckles (or second joints of your fingers) and the true edge into the same line. If you keep this grip you may rest assured that every blow you deal will be with the edge.