But this, you will say, is folly, a supreme example of the perverse slavery of habits. So be it: but there is only one way of playing Rugby football, to play it regularly, to come on the field fresh, and not to worry during the last five minutes, when so many matches are lost and won, whether you will be able to catch the only train that will allow you to change in comfort for that dance. And you have to decide whether or not the thing is worth it. It is an affair of personal preference. Myself I know that for myself rugger has a thrill, a sensation for which the equivalent can be found in no other sport, nor in any other interest. On a cold October day, when ball and ground are greasy with a morning’s rain, and the halves and backs have to go down to it if they would stop a rush, life is for the forward a very rich, a very splendid thing. It is a fine thing to feel a half-volley on the very drive of one’s blade, to see cover dive for it and miss it. It is a fine thing to run fifteen yards backwards and sideways in the deep, to feel that hot, tingling stab as the ball lands within one’s palm, to know that sudden beat of the heart that says, “It’s there, you’ve held it.” It is a fine thing to see a man play forward and miss the pitch of it, to watch the ball pass between the bat and leg, to hear the rattle of stumps. Fine and noble things, with life at such moments marvellously rich. But it is a finer thing that dribbling on a wet day of a slippery, bouncing ball; a finer thing that hard-won sense of battle, as your shins crash against the half who falls in front of you. His fingers clutch at the ball. You kick blindly at them; you stagger; but the ball is free; it bounces into the open; you follow, panting, a singing in your ears. The back is rushing at the ball. Your feet are heavy with mud and a long day’s shoving. Somehow you get to the ball before him. You kick just clear of him. The wing three is coming up behind you. He is fresher, he is faster than you are. Ten yards; will the ball bounce right for you? Your toe turns it ever so slightly to the left; the line is muddily white beneath you. You dive forward, flinging yourself upon the ball, your arms close over it. The three-quarter crashes over you, half-stunning you. You do not care. You hardly notice. You have scored a try. You get at rugger something that you can get nowhere else. It is the game of youth, the supreme expression of youth, and it is taken from us, not unfittingly, perhaps, in early manhood.