I am conscious that, so far, I have treated the Moloch of Athletics with such scant respect that his worshippers may doubt if I ever was really a boy. Certainly my physical inability to play games was rendered less bitter by the fact that I did not care about them. I well remember the astonishment of my tutor, when he kindly asked me to luncheon on his carriage at my first Eton and Harrow match, and I replied that I should not be there. "Not be at Lord's, my boy? How very strange! Why?" "Because there are three things which I particularly dislike--heat, and crowds, and cricket." It certainly was a rather priggish answer, but let me say in self-defence that before I left the school I had become as keen on "Lord's," as the best of my compeers. That, in spite of his reprehensible attitude towards our national game, I was still, as Mr. Chadband said, "a human boy," is proved by the intense interest with which I beheld the one and only "Mill" which ever took place while I was at Harrow.[11] It was fought on the 25th of February, 1868, with much form and ceremony. The "Milling-ground," now perverted to all sorts of base uses, is immediately below the School-Yard. The ground slopes rapidly, so that the wall of the Yard forms the gallery of the Milling-Ground. The moment that "Bill" was over, I rushed to the wall and secured an excellent place, leaning my elbows on the wall, while a friend, who was a moment later, sat on my shoulders and looked over my bowed head. It would be indiscreet to mention the names of the combatants, though I remember them perfectly. One was a red-headed giant; the other short, dark, and bow-legged. Neither had at all a pleasant countenance, and I must admit that I enjoyed seeing them pound each other into pulp. I felt that two beasts were getting their deserts. To-day such a sight would kill me; but this is the degeneracy of old age.