"Let me help you with the trousers," said Mr. Thurgood. "They'll come off quite easily over the boots." They did, and I caught a glimpse of my undergarment as they came off, and clapped my hands on my knees. Why had I not noticed this before? Each knee was picturesquely darned in an elaborately cross-hatched pattern.
"I don't think," I said, "we'll worry about the trousers. I can take them on trust."
"Do you really think so, Sir? It's a difficult leg to fit, you know. Plenty of muscle here and there. Not like some. You set us a task. There's a good deal to contend against in a thigh like yours."
"That's it," I cried with enthusiasm. "You can't do yourself justice unless you've got lots to contend against. I shall make it harder for you if I don't try on, and your triumph will be all the more glorious."
"It's a curious thing," said Mr. Thurgood, looking meditatively at my hands; "I've got just such another patch of darning on _my_ knee," and he pulled up his trouser. "It's funny how you forget to notice a little thing like that."
"In that case," I said, "we will proceed with the trying on," and I removed my hands. "I've got two of them, you see."
"So have I," said Mr. Thurgood. "They generally go together."
From a story in _The Pall Mall Gazette_:--
"'Willie was right,' he muttered. 'The evil men do live after them. The good oft lies interred in their bones, but maybe it was only folly with me, not evil.'"
WILLIE was certainly right, but that's not exactly how (in _Julius Cæsar_) he put it.
"When the men went to the scale, the Welshman was found to be half-a-pound over the stipulated 8st., but he was allowed time to get this off, and just before three o'clock he passed the weight, while Ladbury weighed 7st. 14-1/4 lb."--_Yorkshire Post._
Rather bad luck on the Welshman, who had been sprinting madly round the arena for some hours with eight ounces which nobody wanted, to find afterwards that LADBURY'S extra four ounces were entirely ignored.
"Since tea the crowd had swelled considerably."
An air of dough-nuts hangs over this sentence.
[Illustration: _The Lady._ "HALLO, COUNT! WHAT'S HAPPENED?"
_The Count_ (_who has come off at the third obstacle_). "ONCE I JUMP AND MY HORSE HE CATCH ME; THEN I JUMP AND HE ONLY CATCH ME A LITTLE; ANOZER TIME I JUMP AND HE MISS ME ALTOGEZER."]