thought 'Goodford' asleep. I began the inscribing of my name on the walls. But he wasn't slumbering. He woke up just as I was in the middle of it.
"'Williams,' he cried, 'write out and translate your lessons three times. Writing on the wall, eh? That will be the only way in which your name will be handed down to posterity.'
"Years passed on, and when he became Provost of Eton I met him at a cricket match between Eton and Winchester. He shook me warmly by the hand, and congratulated me on my success in life.
"Please, Sir, here I am!"
"'You haven't altered a bit,' he said.
"'I hope I have,' was my reply.
"'Why?' he asked. I told him his prediction of my writing on the wall. We had a good laugh, and he humorously said:
"'The fact is, Williams, I mistook your writing.'
"I shall never forget how the boys served me once. Really, the average small boy lives at a great disadvantage. It was one Sunday night, and happened during what was called 'private business.' On such occasions my tutor used to read Paley or some such work to us, and explain it. William Gifford Cooksley was my master, and he had a little country house at Farnham, some few miles away. He was late. Just behind the tutor's desk was a clock standing on top of a case some four feet from the ground, partly concealed by curtains. Now, there was just room for one small boy in that case, squeezed tight in, and some of the bigger boys had placed me there, and, to amuse themselves, were making arrows of their quill pens, my poor body being the bull's-eye. I was bearing the reception of these instruments of torture as well as possible when suddenly the tutor's step was heard in the corridor. There was no time to take me down, and the curtains were hurriedly drawn together by, I think, Whittingstall, now Major Whittingstall, very well known in coaching circles. Cooksley, the tutor, entered. There was a dead silence.
"He looked round to see if all were present.
"'Where is that wretched Peccator, that miserable sinner Williams?' he thundered. Think of my feelings behind the curtains when he added, ''Pon my word, I'll have the young rascal well whipped in the morning.'
"A small voice was heard to cry, as the owner thereof drew the curtains aside:
"'Please, sir, here I am!'"
"I was lifted down, and the whole room was condemned to the ordinary punishment of a hundred lines."
From Eton Mr. Williams went as a tutor
