"After the service on Sunday evening the musical instruments were taken by the musicians to their own homes, but one Sunday afternoon Leroux and Short--the owner of the saloon pistol--surreptitiously entered the church and thoroughly soaped the bows of the violin- and violoncello-players, and introduced several peas into the flute. That evening the music was very defective, but although the musicians knew that their instruments had been tampered with there is no reason to believe that they ever suspected that any of the Rector's 'young gentlemen' had had anything to do with the trick which had been played upon them. In future, however, the bows and the flute were removed between the services, as Leroux discovered about a month later, when he thought it was time to repeat his first successful experiment. An aged parishioner, who was always dressed in a smock-frock and grey woollen stockings, had his seat on a bench just in front of the pews where Mr. Darnell's pupils sat. This old man invariably removed his shoes on sitting down, and placed them carefully under his seat, and on several occasions during the sermon, Leroux managed to remove them with the help of a stick to the end of which a piece of wire in the shape of a hook had been attached. Once the shoes had been drawn to Leroux's seat they were passed down by the other boys from pew to pew, and finally left at a considerable distance from their original place of deposition. The old fellow always made a great fuss about the removal of his shoes, which not only amused the Rector's pupils and all the younger members of the congregation, but must also have had an exhilarating influence on the spirits of their elders, upon whom the effect of the usual dull sermon always appeared to be very sedative to say the least of it. However, no public complaint was ever made, and when the old man at length took the precaution to keep his shoes on his feet during service, all temptation to meddle with them was removed." FOOTNOTES: [1] The body was sent home in a cask of brandy which was said to have been partially drunk by the sailors. This gruesome theft was known as "tapping the admiral." [2] The occasion of this speech was when the society of St. Hubert presented Selous with the medal of the "Academie des Sports," "pour services rendus a la Chasse aux grandes fauves" on July 15th, 1911. CHAPTER II 1865-1870 When the time came for Fred to go to Rugby both Mr. Darnell and Mr. Hill advised Mr. Wilson, to whose house it was proposed to send him, not on any account to have a boy whose escapades would be a constant source of trouble, but fortunately Mr. Wilson liked 'naughty' boys and disregarded their warnings.