(_With acknowledgments to Mr. C. B. Fry in the "Daily Express"_)
DEAR OLD PALS,--I want to speak to you seriously and as man to man,
because you're not mere dead hide, are you? No, no, you are intelligent,
sentient soles, and to be treated as such by every player.
Ah! booties, booties, you little beauties, what a lot you mean to us,
don't you? and how hardly we use you.
I've known men to take you off after a game, hurl you--as Jove hurled
his thunderbolts--into a corner of the pav. and there leave you till you
are next required.
Ah! old men, that's not right, is it? How would we great machines of
bone, muscle, and nerve-centre (ah! those nerve-centres, what tricky
things they are!), how would we be for the next match if we were treated
like that? Pretty stiff and stale, eh, old booties?
Now, look here, when we come in after a hard, slogging game, our bodies
and the grey matter in our brains thoroughly exhausted, immediately
we've had our bath, our rub-down, and our cup of steaming hot Hercubos
(I find Hercubos the finest thing to keep fit on during a hard season)
we must turn our attention to you, booties.
First, out from our little bag must come our piece of clean, sweet
selvyt. With it all that nasty black slime that gets into your pores and
makes you crack must be wiped off. Now, before a good blazing fire of
coal--not coke, mind, the fumes of a coke fire pale and de-oxygenate the
red corpuscles of our blood, you know--we must carefully warm you till
you are ripe to receive a real good dousing of our Porpo (I find Porpo
the finest thing for keeping boots soft and pliable).
Finally, with a white silk handkerchief we must give you a soft
polishing, and there you are, sweet and trim against our next match.
Every morning you may be sure we will, like Boreas, drive away the
clouds of dust that collect on you.
And then there are the laces to attend to. Oh, yes, your laces are like
our nerve-fibres, the little threads that keep the whole big body taut
and sound. They, too, must have a good rubbing of Porpo and a rest if
they need it.
Ah! and won't you repay our trouble, booties, when next we slip you on?
How tightly you will clasp us just above the tubercles of our tibiæ, how
firmly you will grip our pliant toes, how you will help us to send the
ball swishing--low and swift--into the well-tarred net!
Good-night, booties.
* * * * *
THE "BALL OF THE SEASON."--Foot-ball.
* * * * *
APPROPRIATE FOOTBALL FIXTURE FOR THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER.--A match against
Guy's.
[Illustration: "The Shinner Quartette;" or, Musical Football.]
* * * * *
[Illustration: RESEARCHES IN ANCIENT SPORTS.--Football match. Romulus
Rovers _v_. Nero Half-Backs.]
* * * * *
[Illustration: PREHISTORIC PEEPS.--The annual football match between the
Old Red Sandstone Rovers and the Pliocene Wanderers was immensely and
deservedly popular!!]
* * * * *
[Illustration: SUNDAY FOOTBALL.--"Just look what your boys have done to
my hat, Mrs. Jones!" "Oh, the dears! Oh, I _am_ so sorry! Now, Tom and
Harry, say how sorry _you_ are, and Mr. Lambourne won't mind!"]
* * * * *
[Illustration: "SOCKER" ON THE BRAIN.--_Harry._ "Smart sort that on the
right--forward." _Tom_ (_a devoted "footer"_). "Right forward? Oh! no
good forward; but looks like making a fair 'half-back'!"]
* * * * *
[Illustration: EXCHANGE!
_Togswell (in the washing room at the office, proceeding to dress for
the De Browncy's dinner-party)._ "Hullo! What the dooce"--(_pulling out,
in dismay, from black bag, a pair of blue flannel tights, a pink striped
jersey, and a spiked canvas shoe_).--"Confound it! Yes!--I must have
taken that fellow's bag who said he was going to the athletic sports
this afternoon, and he's got mine with my dress clothes!!"]
* * * * *