An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY with his patients, and a terrible . fanatic on the open-air question), I at once caught a violent cold, not improved by a bitter frost on the 15th, which cut down our potatoes and young green fig-tops ruthlessly. · Later on I did 12 and 29, or 44 and 113, in all 157, at Lammas, but was hampered by my Hellesdon cough. ·There was a blank Assize on the 23rd (Avory, K.C., was Commissioner), so I got away in time for Smallburgh, but I did no good at the meeting, though next day in practice I did 34 for 152 at 60. No one came down for Whitsun, but next day in practice I did 30 for 150. On the 14th June was the jovial Mackie's (of the 11 ·chronicle'') farewell dinner at the " Maid's Head" Hotel, Dr. Thomson in the chair. Paynton Pigott, next whom I sat, was most amusing. On the 13th I made 38 hits for 165 at 60, and one dozen for 53 in practice, but neither at Reydon nor at Ferriers' Meeting at Mautby could I do any good. On the 21st was practically the only amusing episode of my mayoralty, for the Sheriff and I were asked over (with many other mayors) to the C9lchester Pageant. After lunch, at which some members of the Russian Duma dis– t1.nguished themselves by practically eating with their fingers, and a fat and passee English Countess, chiefly known by her pronounced Socialistic views, were present, we walked in procession down the street to the Castle. As no one was there to marshal us, and there was a diffidence among the Mayors of minor places to assert their rights, my Sheriff and I (he resplendent in purple robes) upheld the importance of Norwich by immediately following the Lord Mayors of London and York, though the Mayors of Lynn and Cambridge ought to have preceded us. The pageant itself was far the best I had ever seen, though , too long. I sat next t.o the wife of the man who admirably personated Endo de Rye, the dapifer and Governor of Colchester, whose impersonation of him certainly flattered the family, for he was a fine upstanding man, and acted well. We went and. returned by motor very fast outside our city boundary, stopping for supper at Ipswich. Since then I notice that Dr. J. H. Round, the well-known genealogist · and a focal man; has been ·most severe on his criticisms on the "Book of Words," a pretty pamphlet by L. Parker, and which certainly contained very many , ridiculous errors.