A captain ought to be specially strict in insisting on getting his men out of their beds at a fixed time, and in seeing that they do not stay up too late at night. Absolute punctuality all round ought to be rigidly enforced. If, however, anybody should resent the severities entailed by this dietary, and pine for freedom, he may be recommended to try what I may call the Ouida system. It is fully set out in "Under Two Flags," from which, in a spirit of humble admiration, I venture to give an extract:—
"'Beauty don't believe in training. No more do I. Never would train for anything,' said the Seraph, now pulling the long blonde moustaches
that were not altogether in character with his seraphic cognomen. 'If a man can ride, let him. If he's born to the pig-skin he'll be in at the distance safe enough, whether he smoke or don't smoke, drink or don't drink. As for training on raw chops, giving up wine, living like the very deuce, and all as if you were in a monastery, and changing yourself into a mere bag of bones—it's utter bosh. You might as well be in purgatory; besides, it's no more credit to win then than if you were a professional.'
"'But you must have trained at Christ Church, Rock, for the Eight?' asked another Guardsman, Sir Vere Bellingham—'Severe,' as he was christened, chiefly because he was the easiest-going giant in existence.
"'Did I! Men came to me; wanted me to join the Eight. Coxswain came, awful strict little fellow, docked his men of all their fun—took plenty himself, though! Coxswain said I must begin to train, do as all his crew did. I threw up my sleeve and showed him my arm;' and the Seraph stretched out an arm magnificent enough for a statue of Milo. 'I said, There, sir, I'll help you thrash Cambridge, if you like, but train I
won't for you or for all the University. I've been captain of the Eton Eight; but I didn't keep my crew on tea and toast. I fattened 'em regularly three times a week on venison and champagne at Christopher's. Very happy to feed yours, too, if you like—game comes down to me every Friday from the Duke's moors; they look uncommonly as if they wanted it! You should have seen his face! Fatten the Eight! He didn't let me do that, of course; but he was very glad of my oar in his rowlocks, and I helped him beat Cambridge without training an hour myself, except so far as rowing hard went.'
"And the Marquis of Rockingham, made thirsty by the recollection, dipped his fair moustaches into a foaming seltzer.
"'Quite right, Seraph!' said Cecil. 'When a man comes up to the weights, looking like a homonunculus after he's been getting every atom of flesh off him like a jockey, he ought to be struck out for the stakes, to my mind.'"
The obvious inference from this is that if we want to avoid looking like "homonunculi" we must acquire dukes as fathers, and get fattened on venison and champagne.