In addition to this private trials are necessary in the presence of someone who is accustomed to timing races by the aid of a stop-watcha by no means easy task, considering that a slight particle of a second means so many yards, and the average speed working out at about 16 yards per secondnearly twice as fast as the fastest pedestrian sprinter, and altogether beyond the power of the fleetest race-horse.

And almost every day some poor fellow lost his head; for the fleetest-footed sprinter in all Greece was overtaken by Atalanta long before he could reach the river bank.

Harold was a swift sprinter, and was called "Harefoot" by those who were intimate enough to exchange calls and coarse anecdotes with him.