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untruthful and a glutton. "He oozed so unpleasantly through his clothes," writes one, "that in the Wall Game, if you pushed him against the wall, you smeared it with him." This unusual trait is probably what others mean when they speak of the peculiar clamminess of his touch "which sent a shiver through us if we shook hands with him," and it may also refer to that blood of his, which they described as "yellow after the colour has gone out of it." This, I am informed, saved him many tannings by the head of the house who had fainted at first sight of it, as James knew and bragged about it. When in want of funds he used to cut himself slightly for threepence and considerably for a strawberry more. His piety, said his detractors, was merely that he prayed unctuously not to be found out in certain nefarious actions. He also prayed for victory in games, which was considered ungentlemanly by his opponents.
Eton boys, until they are put upon an allowance, have themselves so much photographed that the cost must be equal to the rent of a roomy cottage in the country. Nevertheless I found a difficulty in securing a photograph of James. I wrote to an Eton master asking if he could obtain one for me, saying I knew it was customary for boys on leaving to bequeath a selection of their photographs and hazarding the suggestion that when the turn came for the master to depart he did not take these with him but left them behind in sacks. He replied that this was far from being the case, but he also unfortunately informed his pupils of my request, with the result that many of them, seeking a momentary
