Caesar's Boast.

And further—do you mind how, when you appealed with tears in your eyes, to Cæsar for a REAL football, he compromised despicably by palming off on you an inflatable fragment of a pig's inside conformation, presented to him by the butcher as a mark of esteem? Does it not seem but yesterday that you lodged an informal objection on the grounds that the contemptible piece of physiology was a lighter-than-air vessel and therefore ultra vires and no bloomin’ good? And, happy days—don't you recollect how Cæsar snatched the poor substitute arrogantly from your hands and, with a hoot of disbelief, hoofed it violently across the yard with such abandon that it sped with a glorious crash clean through the scullery window, to the utter downfall of Cæsar and the subterranean satisfaction of yourself?

Ah, those were the days, when the germs of football germinated in a thousand paddocks, and All-Blacks crooned in their cradles.