



Produced by Annie McGuire. This book was produced from
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AT START AND FINISH




BY THE SAME AUTHOR

APPLES OF ISTAKHAR




AT
START AND FINISH


William Lindsey


[Illustration]


Boston
Small, Maynard & Company
1899




_Copyright, 1896,_ by
COPELAND AND DAY

       *       *       *       *       *

_Copyright, 1899,_ by
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY




TO THE
ATHLETIC TEAMS OF OLD ENGLAND
AND NEW ENGLAND, OXFORD, CAMBRIDGE,
HARVARD, AND YALE, WHO
MET IN LONDON JULY 22, 1899, GOOD
WINNERS AND PLUCKY LOSERS,
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK




NOTE.


In the present volume I have drawn freely on my previous collection (now
out of print), "Cinder-path Tales," omitting some material, but adding
much more that is new.

I have also added headpieces, in which my suggestions have been very
cleverly carried out by the artist, W. B. Gilbert.

  W. L.




CONTENTS


                                                                    PAGE
  OLD ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND                                          1
  MY FIRST, FOR MONEY                                                 36
  THE HOLLOW HAMMER                                                   62
  HIS NAME IS MUD                                                     91
  HOW KITTY QUEERED THE "MILE"                                       107
  ATHERTON'S LAST "HALF"                                             131
  THE CHARGE OF THE HEAVY BRIGADE                                    153
  A VIRGINIA JUMPER                                                  176
  AND EVERY ONE A WINNER                                             213




[Illustration: Old England and New England]


It is something of an experience for an Englishman, after thirty years'
absence, to stand on the steps of "Morley's" and face the sunlight of
Trafalgar Square. He may not own a foot of English soil, he may have no
friend left to meet him, he may even have become a citizen of the Great
Republic, but he cannot look at the tall shaft on which the "little
sailor" stands without a breath of pride, a mist in his eye, and a lump
in his throat.

It was early afternoon of a warm July day. There was barely enough wind
to blow the spray of the fountains, and the water itself rose straight
in the soft air. I stood contentedly watching the endless procession of
busses, hansoms, and four-wheelers, with the occasional coster's cart,
and asked for nothing more. Long-eared "Neddy" dragging "Arry,"
"Arriet," and a load of gooseberries was a combination on which my eye
rested with peculiar fascination. No amateur "whip" in a red coat on a
bottle-green coach could handle the "ribbons" over four "choice uns"
with a finer air than "Arry" as he swung through the line and came
clicking up the street. I would rather see him pass than the Lord Mayor
in his chariot. I must have stood on the top step of "Morley's" for a
good half-hour, not caring even to smoke, so sweet was the smell of a
London street to me.

I was thinking, as a man must at such a time, of old days and old
friends,--not dismally, but with a certain sense of loss,--when a tall
gentleman came slowly up the steps and stopped immediately in front of
me. I moved aside, although there was plenty of room for him to pass;
but still he looked at me gravely, and at last held out a big brown hand
and said, as if we had parted only yesterday, "Well, Walter, old man,
how are you?" I was a bit in doubt at first. He was so tall that his
eyes were nearly on a level with my own, his figure erect and soldierly,
his face bronzed as if from long exposure to a tropic sun. Only when he
smiled did I know him, and then we gripped hands hard, our fingers
clinging until we saw we were attracting the notice of those around us.
Then our hands unclasped, and feeling a bit foolish over our emotion, we
sat down together.

At first we talked of commonplaces, though all the time I was thinking
of an evening more than thirty years ago when we stood together on the
river path, under the shadows of old Oxford towers, and said,
"Good-bye." He then offered to stand by me when the friendship would
have cost him something, and I declined the sacrifice. Would it have
been better? Who can tell?

Our first thoughts were a bit serious, perhaps, but our second became
decidedly cheerful at meeting again after so long a time. I learned that
he was "Colonel" Patterson, having gained his regiment a good ten years
ago; that he had spent nearly all his time in India; that he had been
invalided home; that he was, like myself, unmarried, and that he found
himself rather "out of it" after all these years away from the "old
country."

I told how I had gone to America, where, finding all other talents
unmarketable, I had become first a professional runner, and later a
college trainer. To this occupation, in which I had been something of a
success, I had given many years until a small invention had made me
independent, and a man of leisure in a modest way. I saw he was a bit
disappointed when I told him I had been forced to "turn pro." in order
to obtain my bread and butter. I knew exactly how he felt, and well did
I remember my sorrow when I dropped the "Mr." from my name. It is not a
particularly high-sounding title, but to appreciate it at its true value
a man need only to lose it and become plain "Smith," "Jones," or
"Robinson." That nothing could raise the "pale spectre of the salt"
between Frank Patterson and myself, not even going outside the pale of
the "gentleman amateur," I was very certain.

But when I told him a little later that I had become a full-fledged
citizen of the United States, he could not conceal his surprise,
although he said but little at first.

We talked of other things for a while, and then my friend came back to
what I knew he had been thinking about all the time, and he asked me
bluntly how it was I had come to give up the nation of my birth.

"It seemed only fair," I answered, "that I should become a citizen of
the country in which I obtained my living, whose laws protected me, in
which most of my friends were resident, and where I expected sometime to
be buried."

At this the Colonel was silent for a little while, and then he remarked
rather doubtfully: "I cannot make up my mind just what the Americans are
like. Are they what Kipling declared them in the 'Pioneer Mail' some
ten years ago, when he cursed them root and branch, or what the same man
said of them a few years later, when he affirmed just as strongly, 'I
love them' and 'They'll be the biggest, finest, and best people on the
surface of the globe'? Such contradictory statements are confusing to a
plain soldier with nothing more than the average amount of intelligence.
What is the use, too, of calling them Anglo-Saxon? They are, in fact, a
mixture of Celt, Teuton, Gaul, Slav, with a modicum of Saxon blood, and
I know not what else."

I could not help smiling a little at the Colonel's earnestness. I tried
to tell him that the American was essentially Anglo-Saxon in spite of
all the mixture; that his traditions, aims, and sentiments were very
much like his own; that he had the same language, law, and literature;
that the boys read "Tom Brown at Rugby," and the old men Shakespeare,
Browning, and Kipling. I told him that the boys played English games
with but slight changes, and that they boxed like English boys, and
their fathers fought like English men.

"Yes," said the Colonel, at last interrupting my flow of eloquence, "I
heard the statement made at the Army and Navy Club only last night, that
the American soldier was close to our 'Tommy,' and that the Yankee
sailor was second to none. Yet all the time I cannot adjust myself to
the fact that he is 'one of us.' Perhaps if I saw some typical Americans
I should be a little less at sea."

"Well," I answered, "if that is what you want,