"Outside!""Don't be an idiot, man. I bagged it first.""My dear chap, I've been waiting here a month.""When you fellows have _quite_ finished rotting about in front ofthat bath don't let _me_ detain you.""Anybody seen that sponge?""Well, look here"--this in a tone of compromise--"let's toss for it.""All right. Odd man out."All of which, being interpreted, meant that the first match of theEaster term had just come to an end, and that those of the team who,being day boys, changed over at the pavilion, instead of performing theoperation at leisure and in comfort, as did the members of houses, werediscussing the vital question--who was to have first bath?

　　The Field Sports Committee at Wrykyn--that is, at the school whichstood some half-mile outside that town and took its name from it--werenot lavish in their expenditure as regarded the changing accommodationin the pavilion. Letters appeared in every second number of the_Wrykinian_, some short, others long, some from members of theschool, others from Old Boys, all protesting against the condition ofthe first, second, and third fifteen dressing-rooms. "Indignant" wouldinquire acidly, in half a page of small type, if the editor happened tobe aware that there was no hair-brush in the second room, and only halfa comb. "Disgusted O. W." would remark that when he came down with theWandering Zephyrs to play against the third fifteen, the water supplyhad suddenly and mysteriously failed, and the W.Z.'s had been obligedto go home as they were, in a state of primeval grime, and he thoughtthat this was "a very bad thing in a school of over six hundred boys",though what the number of boys had to do with the fact that there wasno water he omitted to explain. The editor would express his regret inbrackets, and things would go on as before.

　　There was only one bath in the first fifteen room, and there were onthe present occasion six claimants to it. And each claimant was of thefixed opinion that, whatever happened subsequently, he was going tohave it first. Finally, on the suggestion of Otway, who had reducedtossing to a fine art, a mystic game of Tommy Dodd was played. Otwayhaving triumphantly obtained first innings, the conversation revertedto the subject of the match.

　　The Easter term always opened with a scratch game against a mixed teamof masters and old boys, and the school usually won without any greatexertion. On this occasion the match had been rather more even than theaverage, and the team had only just pulled the thing off by a couple oftries to a goal. Otway expressed an opinion that the school had playedbadly.

　　"Why on earth don't you forwards let the ball out occasionally?" heasked. Otway was one of the first fifteen halves.

　　"They were so jolly heavy in the scrum," said Maurice, one of theforwards. "And when we did let it out, the outsides nearly alwaysmucked it.""Well, it wasn't the halves' fault. We always got it out to thecentres.""It wasn't the centres," put in Robinson. "They played awfully well.