ball, and it was the last he asked of you if you were bearing down
on him. He was equally strenuous of work; indeed I have no clearer
recollection of him than his way of running from play to work or work
to play, so that there should be the least possible time between.
It is the 'time between' that is the 'slacker's' kingdom, and Scott
lived less in it than anyone I can recall. Again, I found him the
best of losers, with a shout of delight for every good stroke by
an opponent: what is called an ideal sportsman. He was very neat
and correct in his dress, quite a model for the youth who come
after him, but that we take as a matter of course; it is 'good
form' in the Navy. His temper I should have said was bullet-proof.
I have never seen him begin to lose it for a second of time, and
I have seen him in circumstances where the loss of it would have
been excusable.

However, 'the boy makes the man,' and Scott was
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none of those things I saw in him but something better. The faults
of his youth must have lived on in him as in all of us, but he
got to know they were there and he took an iron grip of them and
never let go his hold. It was this self-control more than anything
else that made the man of him of whom we have all become so proud.
I get many proofs of this in correspondence dealing with his manhood
days which are not strictly within the sphere of this introductory
note. The horror of slackness was turned into a very passion for
keeping himself 'fit.' Thus we find him at one time taking charge
of a dog, a 'Big Dane,' so that he could race it all the way between
work and home, a distance of three miles. Even when he was getting
the _Discovery_ ready and doing daily the work of several men, he
might have been seen running through the streets of London from