Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/425

 familiar name written in ink. It was put there by a companion owing to his remarkable resemblance to a very eminent detective. The name is—Sherlock Holmes!

Suddenly the batsmen throw down their bats, the boys leave the pavilion, and the seats are quickly emptied. They are all hurrying towards an adjoining meadow. Mr. Welldon has returned, and he invites me to come and see five hundred boys called over in a minute! I timed this very economical and time-saving process of seeing that every boy is in Harrow, and found that the whole thing was got through in fifty-eight seconds.

The lads are arranged in groups, each group presided over by a boy known as the shepherd. A bell rings, and Mr. Edward Bowen, whose idea it was, starts, with pencil and paper in hand, and pays a hurried visit to the first group.

"Eight here—one absent, says the shepherd of the first division. Away goes Mr. Bowen to the next batch—and so on, until five hundred boys are similarly called. The shepherd of every group along the line cries out how many are present in his party, and how many are away. Possibly, were not Mr. Bowen an excellent pedestrian—did he not, thirty years ago, walk from Cambridge to Oxford in a day?—and get down the lines at splendid speed, the process would take very much longer.

Away we went to the cricket field once