“I thought I’d come down and see if you can run as fast as you can talk, Westby.” Irving drew out the revolver, somewhat ostentatiously. “I hope you won’t shoot any one with that; it looks to me as if you ought to be careful how you handle it, sir.” “Thank you for the advice, Westby.” Irving turned from the humorist, and raised his voice. “All ready for the mile now! On your marks! Set!” He held the pistol aloft and fired, and the six runners trotted away. There is nothing very exciting about the start of a mile run, and Irving felt that the intensity with which he had given the commands had been rather absurd. It was annoying to think that Westby had been standing by and finding perhaps in his nervousness a delectable subject for mockery and derision. Irving walked down the track towards the finish line. He found Barclay there holding the watch. “You seem to be discharging your arduous duties successfully,” said Barclay. “Oh, so far.” Irving looked up the track; the foremost runners were rounding the curve at the end of their first lap. He had a moment’s longing to be one of them, stretching his legs like them, trying out his strength and speed on the smooth cinder track against others as eager as himself. He had never done anything of that kind; hardly until now had he ever felt the desire. Why it should come upon him now so poignantly he did not know; but on this warm October afternoon, when the air and the sunshine were as soft as in early September, he wished that he might be a boy again and do the things which as a boy he had never done. To be still young and looking on at the sports and the strife of youth, sports and strife in which he had never borne a part—there was something humiliating and ignoble in the thought. If he could only be for the moment the little Fourth Former there, Price—now flying on in the lead yet casting many fearful backward glances!—Poor child, even Irving’s inexperienced eyes told him that he could never keep that pace. “Go it, kid!” cried three or four older boys good-naturedly, as Price panted by; and he threw back his head and came down more springily upon his toes, trying in response to the cheer to display his best form. After him came Bolton and Edwards, side by side; and Collingwood, who started at scratch, had moved up a little on Morse and Heath. Heath was considered the strongest runner in the event for the Corinthians, and they urged him on with cries of “Heath! Heath!” as he made the turn. “You’ve got ’em, Lou!” shouted a group of Pythians the next moment as Collingwood passed. It was early in the race for any great demonstration of excitement.