Page:Mr. Punch's Book of Sports.djvu/164

Mr. Punch's Book of Sports 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