“‘The Mile Race. Smedley 1, Branscombe 2. Time 4 minutes 50 seconds.’ Whew!” said Ainger, “I can’t beat that; 4.52 is the shortest I’ve done it in, and I doubt if I could do that again.”
“Fiddlesticks! If you don’t do it in 4.48 you deserve to be sent home to the nursery. But do you see Branscombe gave up before the end? That’s odd. I rather thought he was the better man of the two.”
“Branscombe seems to be down on his luck altogether this term,” said Ainger. “I fancy he hasn’t a very sweet time at Bickers’s.”
“But he ought to have won the mile, for all that. He’s got the longest legs in Grandcourt, and used to have the best wind.”
“Gone stale,” said Ainger, “and growing too fast. Why, he must be as tall as Railsford already; and he’s good for an inch or so more.”
“Poor beggar! But what about the high jump?”
“High jump? Smedley and Clipstone a tie, 5 feet 4½.”
“Thank you,” said Barnworth. “I may as well scratch at once. I once jumped that, but that was in the days of my youth.”
“Fiddlesticks! If you don’t clear 5 feet 5, you deserve to be sent home to a daily governess,” said Ainger, laughing. “And, by the way, I hear Wake has been jumping finely lately. Mind he doesn’t do it for you.”
“Wake had better mind his own business,” responded Barnworth. “I, a prefect and a very great person in this house, should greatly resent it if a Fifth-form fellow beat me at the jump. Upon my word I’d give him 100 lines.”