"There are very few good sound even-timers in all England," I answered, "and only two among the amateurs,—one a Cockney, the other a Yorkshireman. The only Lancashireman who can do the hundred in ten seconds is sitting with you to-night, and little likely to see the Old Country again for many a long year, if ever."
At this, Hacking gave me a very comprehensive look, puffed a few times vigorously at his pipe, and said, "Young fellow, boasting is a very bad habit, particularly on sporting matters. I will bet you your board bill for a month against the pipe you smoke, that you cannot show me better than eleven seconds to-morrow morning."
"Eleven seconds!" said I, "a school-boy should do that."
"Yes, eleven seconds," spoke up Hacking again. "You are not in condition and the track is slow, which will even matters up, and I'll give you the advantage of the odd fraction."
I accepted his proposition very promptly, though the pipe was the only friend I had, and a relic of old college days which I should have hated to lose. While I was certainly not in training, poverty and worry had left me no superfluous flesh, and it must be a bad track indeed which could pull me back to eleven.
We talked and smoked until a little after ten, when I pleaded fatigue and went upstairs to bed, Hacking agreeing to call me at six o'clock the following morning, as he said he had reasons for wishing the trial private. He showed me to a very comfortable room on the second floor, which seemed luxurious after my experiences of the last two weeks.
Although I had left home without the formalities of farewell calls, and under the cover of the night, I had put in my luggage, small as it was, a pair of running shoes, trunks, and jersey. Why I did this I could not have told; certainly not in expectation of using them again, for I thought there was no sport in America, and that I had run my last race.
I think now it must have been the unconscious wish to keep one link with the good old days when I had carried the "dark blue" to the front, or thereabout, over brown cinder path and soft green sod.
I did not sleep very well for all my comfortable quarters, and when Hacking knocked at my door on the following morning I had been up an hour or more, and was clad in full running togs, having ripped from trunks and jersey all trace of the well-loved color.
When he looked me over his eyes glistened, for he had not seen an English athlete in a proper rig for many a long day.