Class P"R ( ^ ^ "5 
 
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 Book.iU2jl 
 Copyiiglitls^ l: 
 
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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 
 
DAYS of DISCOVERY 
 
DAYS of DISCOVERY 
 
 BY 
 
 BERTRAM SMITH 
 
 NEW YORK 
 E. p. DUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 68 1 Fifth Avenue 
 1917 
 

 Published, 1917 
 
 BY 
 
 E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 NOV 15 1917 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 TRANSFERRED FROM 
 COPYRIGHT OFFICE 
 

 CONTENTS 
 
 
 I. 
 
 The Barbarian 
 
 PAGE 
 
 9 
 
 II. 
 
 Offensive Weapons 
 
 . 17 
 
 III. 
 
 Opprobrious Epithets . 
 
 . 24 
 
 IV. 
 
 Revenge .... 
 
 . 31 
 
 V. 
 
 The Mystic Gulf 
 
 . 38 
 
 VI. 
 
 The Ordeal .... 
 
 . 46 
 
 VII. 
 
 A Dinner Party 
 
 . 51 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Discovery .... 
 
 . 59 
 
 IX. 
 
 The Phases of Olinda . 
 
 . 66 
 
 X. 
 
 The Firework Season . 
 
 . 74 
 
 XI. 
 
 Secrets 
 
 . 80 
 
 XII. 
 
 Variations on a Theme 
 
 . 86 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Making Money 
 
 . 93 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The Hotel .... 
 
 . 100 
 
 XV. 
 
 Sent on Application 
 
 . 107 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The Uses of the Dummy 
 
 115 
 
 XVII. 
 
 White Weather 
 
 121 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Frost 
 
 130 
 
 XIX. 
 
 The Gale 
 
 137 
 
Contents 
 
 XX. 
 
 Devices and Contrivances 
 
 page 
 > 144 
 
 XXI. 
 
 When the Burglars Came . 
 
 151 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Pains and Penalties 
 
 158 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 The Beast in the Hedge 
 
 165 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 The Coming of Courtesy 
 
 172 
 
 XXV. 
 
 In the Train . . . . 
 
 180 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 About Being in the Middle . 
 
 187 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Secret Habitations 
 
 195 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Scoring Off .... 
 
 202 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 A Strange Tongue 
 
 208 
 
 XXX. 
 
 What to Be . 
 
 216 
 
DAYS OF DISCOVERY 
 
 THE BARBARIAN 
 
 Though civilization and convention may rule 
 the rest of the household with an iron hand, 
 their sway stops short upon the threshold of the 
 nursery, for the upbringing and development of 
 a small boy are comparable to the progress of 
 the race from the chaos of dark ages to the 
 ordered existence of to-day. In the long run he 
 must adapt himself to the conditions that 
 obtain, he must leave behind his war-paint and 
 the primitive habits and customs of his tribe 
 and clothe himself and learn to behave; and the 
 day comes when he must begin to calculate, to 
 consider and to look ahead. But for the years 
 when he is still able to hold his own against the 
 forces that are to shape his course he has many 
 things in common with certain kindred souls 
 
 9 
 
lO Days of Discovery 
 
 In virgin forest where the white man is unknown. 
 Such are his attitudes towards the Ordeal of 
 Battle, which he accepts as fitting and straight- 
 forward — his willing agreement with the prin- 
 ciple that might is right; his faculty not indeed 
 for worshipping but at least for endowing with 
 human attributes all manner of inanimate ob- 
 jects- — ships, locomotives and the like. I well 
 remember a time when an Atlantic liner was 
 quite as much alive to me as an elephant and 
 had a much more striking personality. How 
 could one read the thoughts or imagine the 
 sensations of an elephant? But one knew very 
 well what a ship felt like as she moved among 
 the lesser craft with a slow and easy swagger up 
 the tideway or dragged tired limbs to dock after 
 a stormy crossing. 
 
 I am told — I had myself forgotten it; it is 
 the sort of thing one does forget — that I was 
 presented at an early age to a fellow-pupil for 
 the first time. We shook hands, under pressure, 
 and as soon as we were left alone, "I'm bigger 
 than you," said I. *Tes,'' said he, "but I can 
 knock you down" — which he did. That Is 
 essentially a prehistoric form of Introduction. 
 We could not have been expected to settle down 
 
The Barbarian ii 
 
 to any friendly relation until it had been de- 
 monstrated which of us was the better man. 
 
 Many other savage customs flourish in the 
 nursery — slavery most obviously, unless it be put 
 down by a superior power. Strangest of all is 
 that callous and barbaric cruelty which seems to 
 crop up sporadically in boys by no means heart- 
 less or unfeeling. Once let him get his enemy in 
 his power and a boy will often distress Those In 
 Authority and even amaze himself, when he 
 comes to reflect upon it, by an action of instinc- 
 tive brutality. Archie, my younger brother, had 
 been climbing for a missel-thrush's nest in the 
 old holm oak on the lawn and had slipped and 
 fallen off a branch and come to rest head down- 
 wards in an evil predicament. I had answered 
 his breathless yell for assistance. "Get hold of 
 my legs," shouted Archie. I surveyed him for a 
 moment and then (flying in the very face of our 
 common humanity), *'WI11 you lend me your 
 paint-box?" I demanded calmly. "Be quick!" 
 panted Archie. "Will you lend me your paint- 
 box?" said I. I do not know what would have 
 been the end of it, for Archie was getting very 
 red in the face, had not one of Those in Authority 
 also heard the call for help. One might almost 
 
12 Days of Discovery 
 
 contemplate with despair this little monster who 
 was capable, in the presence of helplessness and 
 urgent need, of quietly taking his stand with his 
 hands in his pockets and propounding his unholy 
 bargain. But the paint-box was at the time a 
 sore point between us and why should I give 
 away chances ? Had the bargain been completed, 
 the paint-box lent and the sufferer rescued I 
 don't think the incident would have disturbed 
 the friendly relations between the contracting 
 parties. Archie was fairly had: he must have 
 seen that. 
 
 The boy maintains the same primitive and 
 barbaric attitude in his dealings with the Goddess 
 of Fortune, his traffic with luck and chances. 
 Luck is a vital element in his life : he is sur- 
 rounded by unseen forces, ordering and controll- 
 ing the events of every day. It is an unshaken 
 faith In his luck that supplies the motive power 
 in half his escapades. Whether he be trying to 
 capture blackbirds with Old John Gardener's 
 riddle and a string, or fishing for tadpoles In the 
 pit, or dodging callers, or hoping he is not late 
 for tea — it is his luck that counts. There is a 
 special virtue In It. One of his purest delights Is 
 in finding things — not, of course, things that he 
 
The Barbarian 13 
 
 has lost but things that have been lost by other 
 people. In this he will display great patience 
 and ingenuity; and a knife encountered in the 
 street, a pencil, or best of all a coin has for him a 
 special significance far beyond its face value. He 
 will treasure it with splendid exultation, proud 
 beyond words of his luck. 
 
 He dearly loves taking chances. In his fine 
 craving for the whole flavour and intensity of 
 existence he must have his fill of surprises, of 
 startling Incidents, of risks. But he does not 
 gamble, as do those of riper years, In any hope of 
 gain; generally speaking he has everything to 
 lose. Rather is his the attitude of the savage 
 who will stake his head upon a wager. In truth 
 he Is often nearer to staking his head than he 
 realizes and many of us can look back upon dizzy 
 and Insensate adventures undertaken for no better 
 reason than that we were ''dared to do It." There 
 was a rotton old line of trellis surmounting a high 
 wall and accessible from the bathroom window, 
 where In days of long ago valuable lives might 
 more than once have been lost in no better cause 
 than this. Any precarious pathway, any break- 
 neck climb, any dangerous and forbidden neigh- 
 bourhood was In Itself an invitation to adventure. 
 
14 Days of Discovery 
 
 But the risk to life and limb was not the only 
 fruit of this one-sided gambling spirit. One had 
 a passion for the Ordeal in divers forms. One 
 was continually subjecting oneself to meaningless 
 tests, pitting oneself against all manner of in- 
 visible antagonists. One would throw one's whole 
 soul into the endeavour to peel off a stocking while 
 standing on one leg. One would freely bind 
 oneself not to open one's eyes in the morning 
 till one had groped one's way to the bathroom. 
 And if success crowned these earnest perform- 
 ances one was not without a sordid sense of 
 achievement, whereas if they failed It meant bad 
 luck. 
 
 Perhaps these eccentricities carried us further 
 than is usual, for ours was a nursery full of boys 
 and my little sister alone represented the temper- 
 ing influence of a wiser, saner sex. But it was 
 ever thus. Luck played a part in every trans- 
 action. Nothing could be well decided without 
 tossing up or drawing lots. And for myself I 
 loved to consult by occult means a vague and 
 arbitrary oracle. I would tell myself that if the 
 number of flies upon the celling was divisible by 
 seven we should have a fine day for our picnic; 
 if I could hit a certain tree with a certain stone I 
 
The Barbarian 15 
 
 might not after all be kept in for neglected sums; 
 if the first man I met had on brown boots I 
 should be in time for my train. Indeed I must 
 have lived in a world of dark and pagan super- 
 stition of my own creation; and at the same 
 time I maintained a swaggering attitude towards 
 the stock superstitions, of adamant superiority 
 and smiling scorn. I looked down with amaze- 
 ment and despair upon the intellectual level of 
 the old woman in the ice-cream shop who drew 
 down the blind lest she see the first of the new 
 moon through glass. I regarded it as a duty, a 
 special mission to fly in the face of all such im- 
 pious beliefs. I would spill salt with much 
 bravado, cross knives ostentatiously, to the horror 
 of the under-nurse. I would go far out of my 
 way, insolently whistling, to walk beneath a 
 ladder; and if I could count thirteen at table 
 gleefully proclaimed the fact and I had no mercy 
 on the fearful. 
 
 Seventeen was ever my lucky number: I think 
 it still is. In a multitude of ways I drew from it 
 comfort and support. Were I loth to get out of 
 bed I would search the room for seventeen units 
 that would bring the needed stimulus. Seven- 
 teen rings on a curtain or books on a shelf would 
 
1 6 Days of Discovery 
 
 do. And I would start the day the better for 
 them. Many of the decisive actions of my life 
 were timed to the seventeenth tick of a clock, 
 the seventeenth swing of a hammock or quack of 
 a duck. ... 
 
 I am afraid you may have found me out. It 
 is true that the small boy, whose doings, fancies 
 and confessions fill these pages was at no time an 
 attractive child. But for my part I sympathize 
 with him still and when I look back across the 
 great Dividing Line to the glowing, teeming 
 world in which he lived, I am well content to 
 know that he made the most of it and need not 
 now reproach himself with wasted opportunities. 
 
II 
 
 OFFENSIVE WKIPONS 
 
 Each had its use — the Bow and Arrow, the Cata- 
 pult, the Pea Shooter, the Squirt — and each its 
 period of exclusive popularity. 
 
 The Catapult perhaps hardly deserves to be 
 regarded as an effective member of the group. 
 We approached it with awe and looked forward to 
 it with hope, as being rather the proper weapon 
 of the schoolboy. To us it was more a magnifi- 
 cent possession, a treasure, than a practical im- 
 plement — a thing to husband closely in the pocket, 
 where the hand at any moment might grip it 
 lovingly, to be taken out on fitting occasions and 
 flicked nonchalantly about by way of showing 
 off: whose handle could be bound and rebound 
 at short intervals with whipcord, whose elasticity 
 was subject of frequent test and trial. One would 
 have been very sorry to have been without a 
 catapult, but if the whole truth must be divulged 
 one was more than a little chary of actually 
 
 17 
 
1 8 Days of Discovery 
 
 letting It off. One had hit one's thumb more 
 than once at that game. 
 
 The Bow and Arrow had a considerable vogue. 
 We were all Robin Hoods then. Very soon we 
 threw over the accepted types, which could be 
 bought in shops, as lacking true romance. A bow 
 was one of the many things (like walking-sticks, 
 stilts and, of course, catapults) that no shop- 
 keeper had ever understood. We cut our own — 
 of trusty yew. Nor had we any opinion at all of 
 smooth, sleek, be-feathered arrows. We must 
 make our own — always with the aid of Old John 
 Gardener — securely tipped with lead, and labori- 
 ously scrubbed with sandpaper. We would 
 rejoice greatly — as would not have been possible 
 in the case of a mere shop arrow — in the exploit 
 of the champion shaft of the hour, till such time 
 as he was lost to us in some prodigious flight. 
 Yet we never had the fullest satisfaction from 
 bows and arrows, for they were subject to con- 
 fining regulation and restriction. Ever since the 
 day when Archie (who was only trying the effect 
 of a new bow-string in the nursery) let fly an 
 arrow inadvertently across the room, narrowly 
 escaping homicide and transfixing the picture of 
 General Gordon which hung upon the wall: — 
 
Offensive Weapons 19 
 
 ever since that unlucky day bows and arrows were 
 accounted too dangerous for promiscuous use. 
 They had their alloted seasons, their fixed occa- 
 sions, even their prescribed lines of flight. There 
 was, in a word, altogether too much red tape 
 about the Bow and Arrow. 
 
 In striking contrast was the position of the 
 Pea Shooter, which was essentially without a 
 trace of official recognition. It was never allowed 
 to become conspicuous enough to be subject to 
 any such hampering restrictions. It was the 
 weapon of stealth, the weapon of the sharp- 
 shooter taking '^pot-shots" (which was the term 
 then in vogue) from a point of safe seclusion. It 
 was responsible for a vast amount of fine guerilla 
 warfare. Its office was to *'pepper" and annoy: 
 to plant a well directed pea in the heart of a 
 group of callers from the hidden branches of a 
 neighboring tree; or rake the serried ranks of 
 the girls' school next door when they walked out 
 to take the air. Naturally it was subject to 
 frequent confiscation. But a new one was not 
 far to seek. It could be cut at any time from the 
 elderberry bush in the shrubbery; the pith 
 ejected with a knitting needle ; the finished weapon 
 dried, seasoned and ready for work within the day. 
 
20 Days of Discovery 
 
 But, while I would not for a moment be un- 
 grateful to the memory of these others, it was 
 the Squirt that really counted. For all offensive 
 tactics a jet of water is incomparably better than 
 a pea, in the thrillling act of nervous pressure 
 with which it is driven forth, softly hissing on 
 its way, in a certain unfailing humour, not easy 
 to explain, which belongs to it, and in the fact 
 that it leaves its mark behind and the victim can- 
 not deny that he too was struck. Oh, yes, squirts 
 were the great stand-by. They were seldom 
 altogether Idle for a day, for one carried one's 
 squirt quite as a matter of course as a man may 
 carry a penknife or a watch. And indeed a squirt 
 of the true orthodox type (for this was one of 
 the things that the shops did understand) with its 
 long, cylindrical barrel and sharply tapered nose 
 of smooth, unbattered lead is truly a delightful 
 object. Even the garden syringe, although far 
 more tremendous in its effects (and additionally 
 desirable because it was prohibited) could not 
 seriously compete with the massive and effective 
 tenpenny squirt or even with the slender little 
 threepenny model, so handy for quiet and un- 
 obtrusive attack. 
 
 The Squirt, in addition to a thousand other 
 
Offensive Weapons 21 
 
 obvious activities, was the chosen weapon of the 
 Duel. Behold the two combatants face to face, 
 at a distance of perhaps four feet, each kneeling 
 in front of his basin of water, each closely en- 
 wrapped In a mackintosh, each delivering at the 
 word of command from the referee destructive 
 streams at his opponent's features. It was often 
 hard to judge, when the ammunition was ex- 
 hausted, who had proved the victor. Both had 
 shared In the sheer Intoxication of the fray. 
 Both were blinded, saturated and bedraggled, 
 and one need ask no more than that. 
 
 And one day a wicked whisper came to me — 
 the outcome of that restless desire with which 
 we were so often possessed to try to Improve upon 
 a good thing. Must it he water? Why should It 
 be water? It was to that diabolical suggestion 
 that I owe the treasured memory of an evening 
 on which I really tasted power. Open rebellion 
 was not new to me, nor occasions of reckless defi- 
 ance. One had defied authority by running away. 
 But to defy authority in hand-to-hand conflict! 
 — It was by all odds a grander moment. Our true 
 parents and guardians were away from home and 
 an uncle and aunt were In charge on the evening 
 when I suddenly stampeded, threw off all restraint 
 
22 Days of Discovery . 
 
 and with my new tenpenny charged with inlc 
 boldly faced the world. Seated astride the high 
 end of the sofa with my back to the wall I blankly 
 refused to go to bed, meeting all advances with 
 the blackened end of my lethal weapon — *'An- 
 other step and I fire!" Gradually it dawned 
 upon me what an overwhelmingly strong position 
 was mine, quite as good in its way as any anarchist 
 who turns at bay with a revolver. By the ex- 
 penditure of a few drops — which left their mark 
 in a dotted line upon the carpet for years to 
 come — I made it clear to all that I meant what 
 I said. And they cowered before me and drew 
 back. It was one of those occasions when "they 
 could do nothing with me" — the uncle and 
 aunt must be sent for; and It was a most for- 
 tunate circumstance that they were on the point 
 of going out to dine and therefore quite excep- 
 tionally vulnerable to a point-blank jet of Ink. 
 My blood was up : words were of no avail. No, I 
 was not going to bed, as a matter of fact I was not 
 going to bed for hours, I was simply going to 
 
 sit where I was. And one step forward . 
 
 Thus I held them through some heady minutes 
 of dizzy triumph, while my allle's looked on 
 admiring, almost worshipping. I was about to 
 
Offensive Weapons 23 
 
 formulate further terms when the fray ended, 
 prematurely as it seemed to me, in a sudden rush, 
 behind cover of an umbrella in which I was 
 borne down, captured and disarmed. 
 
 But my weapon was empty ere I relinquished 
 It. I had left my mark. 
 
Ill 
 
 OP PR OB RIO US . EPI THE TS 
 
 It was in the early age of more active and vigor- 
 ous rebellion, before one had begun to see the 
 advantages of bowing to the storm, and trying to 
 reach one's ends by subtler means, that sheer 
 terms of abuse bulked largely in our vocabulary. 
 In truth I think we must have been a desperate 
 team to drive. When I remember the ever- 
 present resentment with which we regarded all 
 necessary Instructions, and still more the lurid 
 terms In which It was expressed, I am inclined to 
 marvel at the whole-hearted and thorough-going 
 methods of the barbarous age of boyhood. The 
 under-nurse of the moment was one's prime ad- 
 versary. Only at times of overpowering exas- 
 peration did one turn upon the head nurse, and 
 one was apt to regret It afterwards, for she had 
 "a way with her" that somehow lifted her above 
 the level of attack. But each new under-nurse 
 must be made to feel at the outset that you 
 
 24 
 
opprobrious Epithets 25 
 
 would go to bed when It suited your convenience 
 and not before, that you would come out of your 
 bath when In your opinion the proper moment 
 had arrived, and your exit would not be hastened 
 by any new method she might adopt of holding 
 an expectant towel. She would drive you forth 
 of course after a time — having first of all counted 
 twenty, then fifty, and then a hundred without 
 result — by application of the cold tap; but then 
 you told her what you thought of her. 
 
 Swearing was known to be one of the most 
 deadly sins, and therefore held In awe. That 
 was forbidden ground on which one would never 
 dare to trespass. But a difficulty was continually 
 arising as to the definition of what was swearing. 
 It was a subject frequently and earnestly debated, 
 especially when a splendid new word or expres- 
 sion had become our common property. Was it 
 swearing? The trouble was that it was no use 
 going for Information to Grown-up Persons, who 
 alone would be likely to know, for one would be 
 told that whether it was swearing or not It was 
 ''not at all a nice word for us to use" — which 
 wasn't the point. For If It was not swearing it 
 was a sinful waste not to use it. Thus in our 
 wordy warfare, when one or the other of the com- 
 
26 Days of Discovery 
 
 batants had stepped beyond the usual range and 
 employed an expression of a higher flavour than 
 was customary, his opponent had only to say 
 ''That's swearing"; to pull him up at once. 
 It was equivalent to telling him that he wasn't 
 playing the game. Upon which he would of 
 course deny it, and then the original point in 
 dispute was happily forgotten in the Interesting 
 investigation which followed. The disputed word 
 must be submitted to a committee of experts 
 and we would solemnly make up our minds 
 whether it was admissible or no. But if It was 
 adjudged by common consent to be outside the 
 legitimate list of expressions, its user needed no 
 condemnation from his fellows. He would suffer 
 from an inward remorse at the thought of the 
 dreadful thing that he had done, howbeit all 
 unwittingly. In truth we kept remarkably on the 
 safe side. In the absence of an authoritative 
 statement we were careful to draw the line in 
 such a way that there could be no possibility of 
 error. 
 
 One by one words lost their force and flavour 
 by lavish repetition. I can see now that we 
 squandered them too freely. One was far too 
 much given to firing off the best word in all one's 
 
opprobrious Epithets 27 
 
 armoury upon a trivial occasion, instead of waiting 
 for a situation worthy of it, where it might be 
 expected to tell with effect. There was of course 
 a certain element of competition which was 
 largely responsible for this prodigality, for I must 
 get the best words in before my adversary had 
 thought of them. He could not possibly retaliate 
 In the same terms. And so, when times were 
 dull, and no new material had been found for 
 long, one must go on using outworn phrases with 
 a sort of persistent weariness. There were even 
 occasions when one became almost courteous and 
 restrained In one's conversation for want of new 
 matter. Words also, as a rule, worked down from 
 the higher level to the lower in the course of 
 their brief activity. They were generally intro- 
 duced by the older members, who would bring 
 them into play with great effect at first. But 
 when they were taken up by those below their 
 original authors repudiated them after a while. 
 Till In their last most lowly estate they came to 
 be lisped by my little sister In her rare moments 
 of asperity. 
 
 This was the fate of *'Cad" and "Lunatic." 
 "Outsider" had a brief and brilliant run. "Rot- 
 ter" was enormously popular, and even re- 
 
28 Days of Discovery 
 
 curred, after Its first long innings, in several 
 vigorous revivals, so hardly did we come to part 
 with It. But there was, so far as I remember, no 
 more dramatic moment than the Introduction of 
 "Blighter," used with startling effect on Sidney, 
 my elder brother, on the occasion of an alterca- 
 tion as to who it was who had first seen a found 
 penny on the road. Even the penny was forgotten 
 In the general rejoicing at this magnificent acquisi- 
 tion. But its course was brief. A strong suspicion 
 grew up that it was swearing: and though It was 
 upon the tip of one's tongue a thousand times 
 thereafter, it was never again hurled forth In all 
 its glory. "Half-wit" was Invented or discovered 
 by myself, and In consequence I always had a 
 peculiar weakness for it. Perhaps I have still. 
 It was not, like so many of its compeers, adapted 
 to a sudden shout of anger. But it could be driven 
 home with enormous effect by the hammer of a 
 scathing scorn. 
 
 Then there were the various places that you 
 could be told to go to. So valuable was this form, 
 In the traffic of everyday intercourse, that it 
 was never wholly allowed to drop, although the 
 victim's destination was continually being altered 
 and revised. The difficulty was to handle It 
 
opprobrious Epithets 29 
 
 without encroaching upon the forbidden territory 
 of swearing, for there are places that one is told 
 to go to even in after life, that had to be avoided. 
 But you freely were told to go to Jericho or to go 
 to Portobello. Best of all you could be told to 
 go to Blazes — which, by the way, was felt to be 
 sailing very near the wind. 
 
 The entire traffic in abuse had thus its artis- 
 tic side, which perhaps did something to re- 
 deem it. It was not enough to revile in any 
 terms that came to hand. They must be fresh 
 and vigorous or they went for nothing. One had 
 perhaps picked up a brand new Insult from a book 
 or In a tramcar and one would dwell upon 
 It earnestly in private, trying to assess its value, 
 to foresee its effect. The moment came at last 
 when It was launched Into the world, not without 
 some nervousness. For its author must watch 
 Its effect In two separate directions; first upon his 
 opponent — would it make him squirm? Secondly 
 upon the company at large — would it be received, 
 admired, adopted? The latter was much the 
 more Important question. If It was introduced 
 by a younger brother especially, he would 
 await the Issue with anxiety. And were he to 
 hear it later on upon the lips of an elder. 
 
30 Days of Discovery 
 
 with what fine pride would he reflect that it 
 was his. 
 
 I had been out to tea — surely it must have 
 been very early In my criminal career — and there 
 had heard a new and glorious word, splendidly 
 adapted, so It seemed to me, for use on the new 
 under-nurse. But when I was taken off to bed — 
 obviously the proper moment for its first appear- 
 ance — I could by no means remember it! Long 
 and deeply did I ponder, during the process of 
 undressing and in my bath. It was not "Beast" 
 and yet it was allied to *'Beast." I was so 
 "good" that night that not even twenty had 
 to be counted ere I gave myself up to the towel. 
 But the truth was I was deep in thought, trying 
 with all my power to recapture my lost treasure. 
 I had reached the night nursery before it came to 
 me. I was in the very act of being congratulated 
 upon my model behaviour. There could have 
 been no more dramatic moment to test its quality. 
 I sprang across the room, turned upon my un- 
 fortunate conductor. 
 
 "You Brute!" I shouted and tumbled into 
 bed. 
 
IV 
 
 REVENGE 
 
 Generally speaking, one grew out of one's 
 enmities and animosities even more rapidly than 
 one grew out of one's clothes. There was no 
 doubt a time when If strained relations existed 
 between two of us we attacked each other at 
 sight (remembering the guiding principle that if 
 you scratched you left your mark, but If you 
 pinched there was no evidence against you). 
 But at least we did not harbour and maintain 
 our enmity. Even In the event of that most 
 terrible and desolating tragedy of childhood, a 
 miscarriage of justice, our dark fury against the 
 oppressor did not long survive. Retaliation must 
 follow very quickly or not at all. But there 
 would be some hours of bitter resentment all 
 the same. For one made no allowances: the 
 bald and naked truth stood out in all its hideous 
 enormity. One had a terrible, uncompromising 
 sense of justice In those days. There was, I am 
 
 31 
 
32 Days of Discovery 
 
 sure, no calamity v/hich could so darken the whole 
 aspect of existence as to be punished for something 
 which one had not done. Then one sought some 
 distant solitude — ^by preference an actively un- 
 comfortable one — and there brooded upon one's 
 wrongs and let them rankle deep. At first one 
 felt that it was just no use going on at all, in the 
 face of this sort of thing. One supposed one 
 would have to run away — it would be a great 
 bore — one had after all been very happy here, 
 until this happened, and the outside world was 
 by repute inclement. But what could one do? 
 It was no use trying to go on as If nothing had 
 happened. The next phase, so far as I can recall 
 it, was that In which one pondered upon the 
 attractions of "making them sorry," not by any 
 aggressive action on one's own part, but by some 
 noble example of silent suffering, patiently borne. 
 Suppose that one did run away and met with a 
 cab accident at the very door (it would have to 
 happen In the earliest stages) : suppose one were 
 carried In, limp and pale, and deposited upon 
 the dining-room table (one would occupy the 
 centre of the stage much more effectively there 
 than on a mere bed). Then they would be sorry. 
 Suppose one were to starve oneself to death, 
 
Revenge 33 
 
 calmly and without a tear? That would give 
 them more time to relent. Or it might even be 
 possible to go one better than that. If one were 
 to lose one's life in saving Archie from drowning, 
 and they only found out afterwards that it really 
 had been Archie who had done it — who had, 
 that is, turned on the taps in the bathroom and 
 left them running? I think we may safely say 
 that they would be sorry then. . . . There was 
 the tea bell ! One could afford to laugh, harshly, 
 cynically at that summons. It would be ridicu- 
 lous and impossible to appear at tea before one 
 had made up one's mind as to whether one was 
 going to starve or not. And the room was getting 
 dark. All the better; that was quite in the pic- 
 ture. It wanted that to furnish the completed 
 situation of the shivering outcast. . . . But one 
 was hungry — ^beastly hungry. And, however 
 much one might set one's teeth and hold on to 
 it by might and main, the shadow was already 
 lifting. Other thoughts would insist upon in- 
 truding themselves, all sorts of jolly little sug- 
 gestions kept cropping up. One had intended, 
 before all this happened, to spend the evening 
 finishing that kite. If it hadn't been for this, 
 one would have had to make up one's mind 
 
34 Days of Discovery 
 
 whether to paint It red or green. If this had 
 been an ordinary day, with no great catastrophe 
 to upset it, one might have added another four 
 feet to the tall of it. And to-morrow was a half 
 holiday, and there was every prospect of a good 
 wind. And . . . 
 
 It was no use. It had been very fine in its way 
 — a noble and profound experience, but it was 
 quite impossible to keep it up. Hilarious voices 
 in the distance completed the cure. What did 
 It all matter after all? 
 
 It was only In the very earliest stages while the 
 injury was still fresh, before the long train of 
 beautiful and melancholy reflection set in, that 
 one admitted projects of revenge. If any op- 
 portunity occurred then for hitting back with 
 effect it would be recklessly accepted. 
 
 It must be said that miscarriages of justice 
 were of the rarest occurrence — so rare indeed 
 that one remembers most of them even now. 
 But I remember best of all the affair of the tennis 
 court, because that was the one occasion on 
 which I may be said to have scored. 
 
 There was to be a tennis party, actually the 
 first tennis party — for the court had only been 
 constructed during the previous winter. Pre- 
 
Revenge 35 
 
 parations were afoot and the nursery was in a 
 state of keen excitement. The greatest event 
 was the production by Old John Gardener of a 
 fascinating new machine, which was pushed by 
 two handles up and down the lawn, leaving 
 behind it a white track or trail. We watched him 
 with the utmost glee marking the lines. Perhaps 
 we had pestered the old man even more than 
 usual: any way he began to show signs of a 
 ruffled temper, and when he found the string of 
 the net In a hopeless state of entanglement he 
 seized me by the scruff of the neck and marched 
 me Into the house for judgment. The plain 
 truth was that I had not done It, but In the general 
 bustle and confusion, sentence was passed without 
 a proper hearing (all that I wanted was a fair 
 enquiry) and I found myself condemned to spend 
 the next half-hour on a chair far from the scene 
 of action, and alone. I was fortunately able to 
 secure a chair that was near a window that com- 
 manded the lawn. There I sat Indulging In 
 immense hatred against Those In Authority, 
 against old John, against tennis parties and tennis, 
 and all that had contributed to my predicament. 
 Suddenly an exquisite Idea came to me. I saw 
 how by one fell blow I could spoil It all. The 
 
36 Days of Discovery 
 
 preparations were completed before my time 
 was up: In twenty minutes the guests were due 
 to arrive, and the lawn was deserted. If I could 
 only have the run of the garden till they camel 
 
 I stole downstairs and made my way to the 
 tap at the corner of the house, where (as I had 
 hoped) the marking machine was lying, also a 
 bucket of whiting. I rolled up my sleeves and 
 went vigorously to work. First of all I made a 
 trifling addition to the court on the near side: 
 after that I threw out a sort of wing or annex 
 to the opposite court. Then I added a beautiful 
 semicircular bulge beside the net. Next I tried 
 to work In my own Initials, but failed, and 
 hastened back to the tap for further supplies. 
 Then I put In two diagonals and again filled up 
 my reservoir. And finally I embarked upon a 
 perfect riot of delineation till the court presented 
 a magnificent tangle of white lines, wholly bar-, 
 barous and unmeaning. 
 
 I might very well have stopped there, but the; 
 house was silent, the French window vras open 
 and my blood was up. . . . 
 
 I found a final refuge in the shrubbery, from 
 which I could watch events. Already I heard 
 the first arrivals at the front door. There they 
 
Revenge 37 
 
 came round the corner of the house In smiling, 
 affable groups (little they knew what was In store 
 for them!) dressed In elegant white flannels and 
 light summer dresses. Nearly every one had a 
 racquet (they might as well have left those at 
 home!) and here was one who carried a box of 
 balls. Deeply did I enjoy the emotions with 
 which they viewed my handiwork. (They will 
 have something to punish me for this time!) 
 It was a pretty awkward situation of course for 
 Those In Authority: it was pretty humiliating 
 for Old John Gardener: but it must have been 
 the purest joy for my allies from the nursery who 
 had by now begun to appear. And in the end I 
 was dragged forth, a little dirty, white-bespat- 
 tered object, and set face to face with that 
 elegant, disconcerted, disappointed throng — to 
 explain myself. 
 
 But that wasn't all. Let them wait till they 
 saw the drawing-room carpet! 
 
THE MYSTIC GULF 
 
 There was nothing In the old garden that ap- 
 pealed to us as children more than its Eastern 
 boundary. The great twelve-foot wall was the 
 home and centre of all manner of queer occupa- 
 tions and pursuits. It was broadly coped with free- 
 stone and massively clothed with ancient ivy for 
 the greater part of its course, and the top of it, 
 obscured by the luxuriant leaves and scored across 
 by hidden branches, formed a sort of adventurous 
 and rather wobbly causeway where one might 
 crawl on hands and knees looking down upon 
 the world beneath. The view at the lower end 
 was magnificent, extending even to the Green- 
 Hill-Far-Away on the common, and at Its greater 
 altitude the dizzy track ran In among the trees, 
 so that one found oneself perched In a close 
 neighbourhood of Impenetrable greenery on the 
 near side. On the far side, not more than two 
 feet beyond the wall, rose the stable of the 
 
 38 
 
The Mystic Gulf 39 
 
 adjoining house like a cliff, to the gutters where 
 the sparrows dwelt far overhead. Hoisting one- 
 self up by the roof of the potting-shed at the 
 bottom end one made one's way along the summit, 
 always scaling new altitudes, for the wall rose 
 here and there in sharp curves. And thus one 
 might practise the reckless sport of dropping 
 from it, adding to the height by regular grada- 
 tions, and adding at the same time to the tingling 
 sensation of ''pins-and-needles" that character- 
 ized the moment when one struck the ground. 
 And there were often sparrows' nests in the ivy, 
 and lost tennis balls. And there was a point 
 from which one could look through the roof of the 
 conservatory and run little stones down it, 
 tinkling over the glass. But the highest use to 
 which the old wall was put was as a vantage 
 ground from which to fish in the Mystic Gulf— 
 the narrow strip of ground that had been left 
 stranded between the two walls when the stable 
 of the Old Gentleman's House next door was 
 built. It was deep and dark as any dungeon and 
 splendidly mysterious, and from the very nature 
 of its confined and narrow space it was quite 
 untrodden by the foot of man. I suppose it was 
 for that very reason that the Mystic Gulf 
 
40 Days of Discovery 
 
 boasted so rich a deposit of useless odds and ends 
 among the rough stones and broken slates that 
 formed Its main contents. 
 
 It so happened that the dining-room curtains 
 at that time were supported by strong brass 
 hooks, which could be reached with a gingerly 
 outstretched arm from the top of the sideboard, 
 and these served the purpose admirably. It 
 required delicate manipulation to control them 
 at the end of their swaying line, and some patience 
 and no little skill were called for in feeling one's 
 way to a point that was capable of admitting the 
 hook. For it would mumble impotently about 
 the smooth surface of tin cans, and the old 
 umbrella-stick that was one of our most coveted 
 prizes could with difficulty be raised more than 
 a few inches from the ground. But we laboured 
 with a whole-hearted devotion quite out of pro- 
 portion to the importance of the cause, and the 
 museum of relics which we had established in 
 the summer-house added daily to the number of 
 Its specimens. 
 
 As time went on innovations were introduced. 
 We would let down a lighted candle into the 
 darkest recesses; two anglers would work in 
 concert, attacking the umbrella-stick one at each 
 
 I 
 
The Mystic Gulf 41 
 
 end and trying to lift it with a perfect balance 
 at the same moment. For as we became by de- 
 grees skilled exponents of the sport we despised 
 the more obvious prizes. There was no satisfac- 
 tion In fishing up a broken fire-guard, for instance, 
 or the remnant of a wicker basket. These were 
 too palpably bookable. It was to the most 
 serious problems that we turned longing eyes — 
 the orange, the watering-pot, the twisted poker. 
 It became a common practice to dedicate oneself 
 for the afternoon to one of these, the baffling 
 and the unattainable. "I am out for the poker 
 to-day," one would announce, and until the tea- 
 bell rang one would suffer no distraction from 
 this stern endeavour. It was comfort enough 
 to have had a bite — that is to say, to have 
 perceptibly lifted the quarry clear of the 
 ground. 
 
 It was Colin, my second brother, who brought 
 home the orange in an Impressive scene, during 
 which It was placed with elaborate musical 
 honours In the forefront of the museum. He 
 had discarded his hook and line, and borrowing 
 a long pole from the bleaching green had fitted 
 It with a stout point of wire. With this he had 
 skilfully run the orange to ground In a corner of 
 
42 Days of Discovery 
 
 the wall, speared it and brought it up. The pole 
 was afterwards found useful for stirring up and 
 altering the position of other objects so as to 
 make them more amenable to attack. 
 
 And then there came a day when our long 
 practice was put to good account, and we were 
 able to save ourselves from a desperate situation 
 by our familiarity with the art. For it was the 
 season of sparrows' nests, and we had found one 
 in the waterpipe that ran up the wall beyond. 
 It was so placed that one could positively see 
 the eggs by climbing and holding on in a dangerous 
 and distorted position, and yet the opening was 
 so small that they were not to be reached. But 
 could they not be ladled out with a spoon? 
 With a beautiful disregard for the value of pro- 
 perty a small antique silver spoon was brought 
 forthwith from the cabinet in the drawing-room, 
 applied by an eager and unsteady hand, and 
 dropped into the Mystic Gulf! 
 
 Here was indeed something to fish for. Here 
 was a new element of urgency, of overwhelming 
 gravity introduced into the sport. Here was a 
 sufficient cause to put us on our mettle. The 
 candle, on being lowered, revealed the quarry 
 lying well in an open space. But we recognised 
 
The Mystic Gulf 43 
 
 with dismay that nothing is less vulnerable to 
 hook or spear than a small silver spoon. And yet 
 we triumphed. For my own inherent love of all 
 that is sticky prompted me to a brilliant rescue. 
 At the very moment of the ringing of the tea-bell 
 that was to seal our fate, and in the centre of a 
 thrilled, expectant group, holding back the ivy, I 
 let down a tethered tennis ball smeared lavishly 
 with birdlime. It descended with perfect pre- 
 cision, and I allowed it to settle for a moment 
 upon its prey before I drew it triumphantly to 
 the surface. The only untoward outcome of 
 the incident was an unmerited reproof to the 
 housemaid for neglecting to keep the silver 
 clean. 
 
 After that the tennis ball became for a time 
 the favourite bait. It would roam about the 
 horrid depths gathering an unsavoury cargo of 
 paper, pieces of cloth, or anything else of a 
 readily adhesive nature. These were not admitted 
 to the museum, but they were carefully subjected 
 to examination before they were destroyed. For 
 we had a wonderful faith in the possibilities of 
 our Gulf, and it seemed not at all unlikely that 
 one might strike a bank-note or a cheque. Such 
 things did happen I 
 
44 Days of Discovery 
 
 But the Gulf became exhausted. Even the 
 umbrella-stick and the watering-pot had been 
 retrieved, and the poker had been given up as 
 hopeless. It was necessary to re-stock our waters. 
 It was thus that the custom grew up of casting 
 in all manner of goods and chattels for the sake 
 of fishing them up again. At first they were of 
 no value, and were selected solely for their fish- 
 able properties, but we were not satisfied with 
 that. A sort of sinister competition grew up 
 between us in flinging in our most treasured 
 belongings. The climax wa's reached upon a 
 dreadful day when we all set to work to outbid 
 each other in a reckless display of wanton and 
 courageous sacrifice. The nursery cupboard was 
 cleared out, private drawers were searched and 
 rifled, and a great bale of miscellaneous property 
 was hauled to the top of the wall — books, knives, 
 paint-boxes, a telescope, a tennis racquet, and 
 many other treasures. All were cast recklessly 
 into the depths, and we peered down at them 
 with quaking hearts and faced the task before 
 us. 
 
 I doubt not that all would have ended well 
 had it not been for the thunderstorm. As it 
 was, our salvage operations were carried out two 
 
The Mystic Gulf 45 
 
 days later In the spirit of dark and dogged bitter- 
 ness of those who must save what they can from 
 the wreck. 
 
 And we fished no more in the Mystic 
 Gulf. 
 
VI 
 
 THE ORDEAL 
 
 The adventure of the Mystic Gulf was by no 
 means the only occasion on which we engaged in 
 sinister speculations and subjected our dearest 
 belongings to the Ordeal in divers forms. This 
 strange necessity by which one's goods must go 
 forth to seek their fortune, as it were, led us into 
 the queerest transactions. It was not that we were 
 for a moment indifferent to our property. Rather 
 we clung to it with a burning desire. It was 
 terrible to lose it in some reckless enterprise, 
 though even then one had a feeling that it had 
 been sacrificed in a good cause. But there is no 
 question that it had an added value and a new 
 prestige when it had tempted Providence and 
 been gloriously retrieved. 
 
 I have freighted a toy boat with all my worldly 
 wealth in pennies and pushed it forth, with a 
 pang, from the edge of the pit. I have listened 
 at night with a quaking heart to the rain upon 
 the window, conscious that my new bow and 
 
 46 
 
The Ordeal 47 
 
 arrow were lying unprotected in an angle of the 
 roof to which I had surreptitiously conveyed 
 them. I have buried my new jack-knife in the 
 shrubbery. And, best of all, I have left in the 
 box that held the books in the family pew at 
 church a real stylographic pen for a whole week, 
 setting forth to the morning service when the 
 term was over, with quite unusual alacrity. It 
 was splendid to pass the church on a week day 
 when it was deserted and locked up, hugging the 
 private knowledge that there was a stylographic 
 pen in there — a thing that no one would have 
 dreamt of for a moment. 
 
 Those in Authority did not understand this 
 attitude at all. We were not fit, it appeared to 
 them, we were not old enougli to have such 
 things as stylographic pens and jack-knives if we 
 valued them so little. But that was a colossal 
 misjudgment of the case. It was just because we 
 valued them, just because they were the best 
 and dearest that we had that they must face the 
 Ordeal. It was when Archie and I were given 
 watches for the first time that we had to submit 
 to the gravest indignities in this connection — 
 had even to hear a favourite uncle blamed for 
 his unthinking generosity. And yet I am con- 
 
48 Days of Discovery 
 
 vinced that no one ever loved a watch more 
 passionately than I loved mine. Admittedly it 
 was a litle difficult for Grown-ups to understand, 
 but at the time it appealed to us as a worthy and 
 necessary test. We were discovered seated on 
 the bank above the lawn, throwing our watches 
 across the turf, and increasing the distance after 
 every round. Even now I recall the thrill with 
 which one cast them in the air; the dreadful 
 thud with which they dropped among the daisies, 
 striking terror to the owner's heart. One of 
 Those in Authority intervened, searching ques- 
 tions were asked, confiscation even was contem- 
 plated. It was not the sort of thing that is easily 
 explained, but we confessed the truth at last, 
 resentfully and in no expectation of sympathetic 
 judgment. We were simply finding out which 
 of us could throw his watch furthest without 
 stopping it. That was all. We never meant to 
 break them. But did we recognize the risk? 
 Of course we recognized the risk. The risk was 
 the reason, the motive, the heart of the whole 
 affair. As well throw turnips if there had been 
 no risk. We had to promise not to repeat the 
 experiment, and I have always regretted that the 
 thing was never fought to a finish. 
 
The Ordeal 49 
 
 Archie and I went to school at that time — In 
 the forenoons only — to a house a mile and a half 
 off, down a narrow lane running out into the 
 country. An old wall In a state of senile decay 
 ran down one side of it, and on the other was a 
 hedge with trees here and there, notably a vast 
 hollow oak. So that the whole course may be 
 said to have been rich in crevices and holes. 
 One day Archie with much bravado dropped his 
 knife into one of them on the way to school and 
 recovered it on his return. From that moment 
 the new game had begun — the game of depositing 
 a variety of treasures on the outward journey In 
 favoured holes and corners, and repossessing our- 
 selves of them on our homeward way. The thing 
 grew In scope till the whole mile-long route was 
 stuffed with hidden treasure visible only to our 
 Inward eye. At last we would start out with 
 bulging pockets and arrive at our journey's end 
 depleted. Profound cunning was called for, as 
 it was only when the coast was clear for a moment 
 that a deposit could be made or safely withdrawn; 
 and during the hours at school one would sit 
 tingling with excitement at the thought of all 
 one's property thus cast adrift in jeopardy. 
 There was a double chance of loss, for not only 
 
50 Days of Discovery 
 
 might our deposits be found and abstracted, but 
 so great and complex did the field of action 
 become that one might well forget to retrieve 
 some Item in the list. Eagerly we vied with each 
 other in pouring out with a lavish hand the 
 noblest of our possessions. The thing reached a 
 point when one had no longer any pleasure in a 
 favourite knife or purse or pocket-book which 
 had not passed through the ordeal and braved 
 for three mortal hours the curiosity of the passer- 
 by. And I shall never forget the proud moment 
 of reckless heroism which was mine when I 
 plunged my beloved watch into the dead leaves 
 in the heart of the hollow tree. But I had to pay 
 for It with a long and terrible morning of anxiety 
 at school. When the game had lost Its zest and 
 grown stale and foolish In our estimation, I was 
 condemned to many days of search for a paint- 
 box that was dear to me, whose special cranny I 
 had forgotten. And It is probable that — if the 
 wall be standing still — my paint-box is somewhere 
 secreted in it yet. 
 
VII 
 
 A DINNER PARTY 
 
 Now that one has become a mere participant in 
 the well-ordered feast, both the dinner itself 
 and the occasion which it represents have lost 
 much of their original flavour. The former 
 should, of course, to be fully enjoyed, be stolen 
 in small quantities from the pantry, and con- 
 sumed in a dark, remote spare bedroom; the 
 latter should be viewed surreptitiously from an 
 ambush. 
 
 I can remember hardly any event which threw 
 the nursery Into so high a state of excitement as an 
 impending Dinner Party. For this strange func- 
 tion, whose real Intention was wrapped in ob- 
 scurity, laid a potent spell upon the house, giving 
 a wholly new aspect to familiar things, subtly 
 affecting the behaviour of familiar persons. From 
 ,he very moment when the iron handle was brough 
 forth from the back of the sideboard, and at its 
 
 51 
 
^2 Days of Discovery 
 
 magic touch the dining-room table split across 
 the centre and expanded Irresistibly along the 
 carpet (with a yawning chasm growing by inches 
 In Its Interior) and was thereafter fitted with 
 ^'leaves" to make good the discrepancy — till 
 the moment when one had been finally captured 
 for bed, and had nothing left to hope for, except 
 to try to keep awake to listen for departing 
 carriages, the afternoon and evening resolved 
 themselves Into one long adventure. 
 
 The development of the dining-room table 
 from the humble board at which we had lunched 
 Into a glittering prodigy that filled the whole 
 room was in itself a thrilling process, rich in 
 climax. Its final equipment was so lavish, so far 
 beyond the needs of the case, so fantastic and 
 unreal that one could but marvel at It as one of 
 the most astonishing revelations of the mind of 
 the Grown-up. The number of knives and forks 
 alone, If one took the trouble to count them, was 
 cause for laughter, but the glasses were simply 
 bewildering, suggesting as they did a degree of 
 excessive and discriminating thirst which one had 
 never dreamed of. The only Innovation with 
 which one could generously sympathize was the 
 
A Dinner Party 53 
 
 treatment of the table napkins. In these up- 
 standing and contorted forms — each bearing a 
 small roll of bread within its snow-white heart — 
 one could almost trace the hand of genius. That 
 was a feat to be practised with clean pocket- 
 handkerchiefs for days to come. 
 
 Of course it was well understood, as it had been 
 vigorously laid down, that our sole duty on such 
 an occasion as this was to keep out of the way. 
 But to obey the Injunction literally was more 
 than flesh and blood could be expected to stand. 
 It was really very little use trying to get into 
 the kitchen — an alluring scene of distracted effort, 
 where all manner of miracles were being per- 
 formed — but one could always climb down the 
 dark little enclosure outside and enjoy the prospect 
 from the windows, slowly mastering by observa- 
 tion the principal items of the bill of fare. As a 
 matter of fact, one was pretty well posted as to 
 the progress of the campaign, and If there had 
 been any question of the fish arriving late, or 
 any doubt at all as to the successful outcome of 
 the savoury, the company at nursery tea had dis- 
 cussed the crisis with sympathetic Interest. 
 Nursery tea was apt to be Inadequate on these 
 occasions, but we made no complaint on that 
 
54 Days of Discovery 
 
 score. Well we know — who better? — the 
 strain that had been thrown on the adminis- 
 tration. 
 
 The next glorious event of the evening was 
 the appearance of Old John Gardener. That 
 was one of the finest examples of the faculty of 
 the party for turning all things topsy-turvy. For 
 John — It was obvious to the meanest Intelligence 
 — looked hopelessly out of place In the house, 
 though we were all agreed that he was exceed- 
 ingly handsome In his black suit. For a long time 
 we believed that he was regularly called In when 
 the climax arrived as a sort of dictator to take 
 over the complete direction of the affair — a posi- 
 tion quite admirably In accordance with his 
 talents; and It was with something of disappoint- 
 ment that we discovered later that his was the 
 humbler office of assisting with the carving 
 and carrying the heavy dishes up the kitchen 
 stairs. 
 
 Before we come to the active period of skirm- 
 ishing which filled the evening, I would point 
 out that much depended on the waitress of the 
 moment. There were several of these In our day, 
 but they all fell Into one of two classes; those 
 who said they would bring you something after- 
 
A Dinner Party 55 
 
 wards if you would go away now and be good, 
 and those who gave you something at once as 
 the price of your going away. 
 
 The Arrival was witnessed, of course, from a 
 safe ambush. The favourite spot was the curtain 
 at the head of the stairs which commanded the 
 hall, but it only accommodated two. Others 
 must be content with the top of the long linen- 
 press in the lobby or the chink of a half-closed 
 door. When each new-comer was safely stowed 
 In the drawing-room we could come out and 
 compare notes, ready to seek cover again at the 
 next ring of the bell. But we were always in 
 our places when dinner was announced, lying 
 flat upon the upper landing and peering through 
 the banisters, enjoying a magnificent view of the 
 short procession as It turned Into the dining- 
 room. 
 
 After that there was a pause for a while. My 
 sister probably detached herself from the main 
 party, and stole Into the bedroom behind us with 
 a view to examining from a safe distance, and not 
 without a certain awe, the cloaks of the visiting 
 ladies laid out upon the bed. It seemed silly, but 
 girls were like that. In the meantime there was 
 not much to be done, for no one Is Interested in 
 
56 Days of Discovery 
 
 soup, and the occasion was, therefore, a good one 
 to go down to the dining-room door and "listen 
 to the buzz." There we would stand whispering 
 for a time while feverish servitors passed to and 
 fro. And certainly there was nothing more 
 mysterious or memorable in the whole evening's 
 entertainment than this strange penetrating buzz 
 of conversation which rose almost to a scream 
 whenever the door was opened. That they were 
 all talking at once at the top of their voices was, 
 of course, obvious, though one could never dis- 
 tinguish the words. But what were they talking 
 about? And why in the world did they do it? 
 This was no ordinary conversation. It was 
 clamour. And yet one must suppose they were 
 eating all the time. 
 
 After that one would always pay a visit to the 
 deserted drawing-room where the fire burned 
 brightly and the lights were low. It gave one 
 some sort of curious satisfaction to occupy the 
 very stage of this fantastic drama, between scenes, 
 and to discuss the gay host that would so soon 
 return to it. But we must be up and doing, for 
 a scout has reported that the joint has already 
 descended to the kitchen, and the moment for 
 active pillage has arrived. From our base upon 
 
A Thinner Party 57 
 
 the upper landing a series of raids would then be 
 made, and woe to the dish which, having served 
 its purpose in the dining-room was left unguarded 
 in an empty pantry! One after another we tried 
 our luck with varying success, making merry 
 picnic with the spoils. As time went on, the 
 sport became more and more exciting, for we had 
 two forces to contend with. On the one hand 
 Old John Gardener, now relieved from his more 
 pressing duties, would take it upon himself to 
 guard the stairs, and an attack could only be 
 made at a moment when he had been called 
 away. 
 
 On the other hand, we were already being 
 captured ourselves, every one in his turn, for bed, 
 and the company diminished fast as one reluctant 
 victim after another was borne off to the night 
 nursery. There was still, of course, the possibil- 
 ity of a daring descent in one's night-shirt, but by 
 that time there was an added risk. For at any 
 moment the ladles might emerge into the 
 hall. 
 
 Even when one had settled down for the night 
 there was always a remote chance that an ally 
 In the kitchen would send up some final fragment 
 of dessert. But it was not likely. One must 
 
58 Days of Discovery 
 
 resign oneself to listening to the faint strains of 
 music from below, and pondering upon the central 
 problem which never grew stale — of why they 
 did this sort of thing, and If they really had 
 enjoyed themselves. 
 
VIII 
 
 DISCOVERY 
 
 Many of the most vivid and memorable of our 
 adventures were the outcome of the burning need 
 to Explore. Which of us has not been deeply 
 thrilled by the compelling invitation of a closed 
 door in a high wall about which the cobwebs 
 hang and whose hinges are rusted with long 
 disuse? Which of us has been able to contem- 
 plate unmoved the discovery of an unknown 
 grating in the garden or an unknown trapdoor 
 in the roof? 
 
 I had had an astounding glimpse into the 
 possibilities of a strange hinterland on a memor- 
 able afternoon when I had come upon a plumber 
 at work in the storeroom, of all places. He had 
 opened a little wooden door in the wall — most 
 strange that we had never noticed it! — and by 
 the yellow light of his candle, there thrust in, 
 had shown up a dusty cavern, reaching away into 
 the shadows beyond, where there were pipes and 
 
 59 
 
6o Days of Discovery 
 
 rafters and a dank, alluring smell. It was no little 
 disappointment that he should have locked the 
 door when he had finished. But perhaps there were 
 other such doors. Yes — it was almost too good 
 to be true — but a long, wet half-holiday spent in 
 patient search of every possible place of con- 
 cealment revealed no less than three. There was 
 one high up in the wall of the servants' bedroom, 
 a second behind the wardrobe in the spare room, 
 and a third — a trapdoor, no less — in the roof of 
 the landing. And, when I came to think of it, 
 there was a whole basketful of keys in the pantry 
 cupboard. One of them was bound to fit. 
 Clearly the time had come to gloat upon the 
 prospects of the enterprise and lay plans with 
 studied deliberation. I could hardly fail to wear 
 a look of superior intelligence in my dealings with 
 *'the others." They who still regarded a house 
 as a thing of rooms and passages, and nothing 
 more. Little they knew! 
 
 For, unlike all other nursery enterprises, which 
 depended much upon companionship and con- 
 certed action, the enterprise of discovery must 
 be pursued alone, else would it lose its flavour. 
 One would have had no real or lasting joy in it 
 had one not been "the first that ever burst" 
 
Discovery 61 
 
 into an unknown lumber-room or disused coal- 
 hole. The Grown-up Persons may have known. 
 It was their house; strange if they were not 
 fully acquainted with its contents. And yet, on 
 reflection, one concluded that they had probably 
 got no further than suspecting that such things 
 were. It remained for me to make every hole 
 and corner of the building my own by pains- 
 taking investigation. And then — if one came to 
 think of it — what hiding-places ! You could lie 
 perdu while the house resounded to the tramp of 
 Callers ! You could hear your name shouted in 
 every room with absolute security. Decidedly 
 much had been added to the glorious possibilities 
 of life by my interview with my plumber in the 
 storeroom. He knew, but I was not surprised at 
 that. I had always considered plumbers to be 
 men of extraordinary intelligence. 
 
 As soon as I had wiggled my adventurous way 
 through the little door in the servants' bedroom 
 and groped on with beating heart till I found I 
 could stand upright, as soon as my shaking hands 
 had set my candle-end alight, I knew that here 
 was all that I had hoped for, and more. I sat 
 down to try to realize the great experience. 
 Beneath my feet were rafters, running cross- 
 
62 Days of Discovery 
 
 wise, with grey bulged lines of plaster between 
 them, which rather puzzled me. They had such 
 an untidy, unfinished appearance. And there 
 were props here and there in the roof, which 
 sloped up above me; and everywhere were cob- 
 webs, dust, and a sour, choking smell. I dare say 
 the smell was the best of It. Had the place been 
 clean and airy how much it would have lost! 
 So I set out across the rafters and came to a great 
 cistern, which fizzed and sputtered internally, 
 and beyond that I saw a faint suggestive light 
 rising from the floor of the cavern. So low was 
 the roof at that part that I must creep upon my 
 hands and knees. Still I went forward, not 
 without delicious thrills of terror, for my line of 
 retreat seemed far away by now, until I reached 
 a little opening covered with perforated zinc. 
 Lying on my face I peered down. With what a 
 sudden shock of throbbing delight did I see before 
 me, as in a picture, the old familiar nursery! 
 There, all unsuspecting, was Lizzie, the under- 
 nurse, laying the table for tea. There, with no 
 Idea of the tremendous events that were going 
 forward above him, was my younger brother 
 playing with his soldiers. I could even see ijpon 
 the sofa the book that I had flung down, ^ut 
 
Discovery 63 
 
 half an hour ago — in the old days before I had 
 become an explorer. I could feel the hot air 
 from the gas rushing up through the opening. I 
 could hear the clink of china. It was very strange 
 that that should be possible, that I should even 
 be able to make out the details of the room — 
 with the naked eye. I whistled softly. Archie 
 looked up, gazed round the room with a puzzled 
 expression, and I chuckled with delight. Here, 
 again, were possibilities, not to be immediately 
 expended. How I would haunt and baffle them 
 all in the days to come ! I pictured to myself an 
 occasion at nursery tea when a deep voice from 
 the sky would startle and arrest the company. But 
 Lizzie kept blowing dust off the table-cloth and 
 looking up to see where it came from. It was 
 time to beat a retreat. 
 
 The door behind the wardrobe proved very 
 disappointing, revealing only a single pipe In a 
 small wooden case, and it was many weeks before 
 I managed to make my way through the trap- 
 door In the landing. That was the greatest 
 afternoon of all, as it was also the last. I roamed 
 at will In strange low tunnels, untrodden for half 
 a century by the foot of man. I found a grimy 
 skylight, and when I had rubbed away the cob- 
 
64 Days of Discovery 
 
 webs from it could see outside the tossing leaves 
 of trees. I found myself, in the course of my 
 journey, over the dining-room, over the bath- 
 room, and over the hall. I climbed down peri- 
 lously from one level to another. I saw a rat, 
 and fled In abject fear, slipping between the raft- 
 ers on to laths that seemed to give for a moment 
 beneath my weight; and at the last I lost myself 
 completely and sat shivering with my candle, a 
 forgotten outcast, wondering If by now the rest 
 of them were safe In bed. Then I saw before 
 me a narrow opening I had not explored, and 
 started out again with fresh hope. It led me to 
 the most astounding solution of my difficulty, 
 for I came out triumphant, not by the trapdoor, 
 but by the old familiar entrance from the 
 servants' bedroom. And by the clock which 
 I consulted there — It was not yet time for 
 tea! 
 
 But there was something astir in the hall below, 
 where the whole household was collected. And, 
 indeed, a startling phenomenon had come to 
 pass. The floor was covered with dust and 
 plaster. The china on the cabinet lay in frag- 
 ments among the debris, and overhead could be 
 seen in the high ceiling a great open scar, not 
 
Discovery 65 
 
 unlike the map of Australia, where clean, white 
 laths were visible. There was no more exploring 
 after that, but it was sheer bad luck, as I knew well 
 that had brought me to this pass. For it never 
 need have happened had it not been for the rat. 
 
IX 
 
 THE PHASES OF OLINDA 
 
 In the beginning of things Olinda — which was 
 the house next door — had been, as it were, a 
 sister house to our own. That was one leading 
 reason why we regarded her many turns of 
 fortune with sympathetic interest. We had, I 
 think, a vague, unexplained feeling that had 
 things been other than they were we might have 
 been living in Olinda. We were so near to that, 
 though we had just missed it. But with the years 
 the close similarity between the two houses 
 passed away. After a while we could no longer 
 regard our neighbour as an equal but rather as a 
 humble reminder of the state from which we 
 ourselves had risen. For Olinda was left behind. 
 It is true that she was the first to make a move. 
 It was just about that dim, borderland period 
 when one ''began to remember" that Olinda 
 invested in a new conservatory on the far side 
 
 66 
 
The Phases of Olinda 67 
 
 of the front door (the building of which I must 
 always look back to as the first outstanding event 
 of my life, that I can recall as an eye-witness). 
 This led to a still more striking innovation in 
 the re-shaping of the whole contour of the 
 drive. 
 
 We were not long in retaliating, however, with 
 powerful effect, in the form of no less than three 
 structural alterations in the next few years. 
 First came the addition to the drawing-room, 
 which actually had the effect of pushing the front 
 door round the corner: then followed the new 
 nursery wing, which completely shifted the centre 
 of gravity of the house, as it were : and finally 
 the new spare room, culminating in the Tower, 
 from which we could look down over the 
 intervening trees upon our dwarfed com- 
 petitor. 
 
 But events out of doors, which followed at a 
 later stage, were still more startling and dramatic. 
 For there we not only outgrew Olinda, but 
 prospered at her expense. Circumstances so fell 
 out that we began to annex our neighbour's 
 garden. After the early, prosperous days of the 
 Girl's School, as she was slowly sagging downward 
 
68 Days of Discovery 
 
 in the social scale to the point when her drive 
 was untended and her conservatory was bare, 
 bit by bit her crumbling territory fell into our 
 hands. First the boundary was thrust back so as 
 to absorb the walk and the two walnut trees. 
 Then one summer our lawn enjoyed a prodigious 
 expansion, devouring the space almost up to 
 her very windows. And then (and this was the 
 most astounding move of all) our kitchen garden 
 leapt over, so to speak, to the farther side of her 
 diminished lawn, a connecting walk was made at 
 the foot; and thus Olinda was completely in- 
 vested, encircled, and became, rightly regarded, 
 no more than a bite, walled off and reserved out 
 of our own domain. 
 
 In its earliest stage, Olinda's chief use in our 
 eyes was as a happy hunting ground for exploring 
 parties. It was simply a question of getting as far 
 as you could without being seen. There were 
 admirable shrubberies on both sides — there was 
 a clump of bushes almost opposite the drawing- 
 room windows — there was a high wall to surmount 
 at the very outset, and as the gardener was a 
 man of short and choleric temper (but no great 
 runner) It might be said that all the necessary 
 
The Phases of Olinda 69 
 
 conditions were forthcoming. By a succession of 
 stealthy and cautious expeditions we had soon 
 covered the greater part of the garden and laid 
 bare its secrets. Once under shield of darkness a 
 scout had even reached the stable yard, and 
 reported a trough of a pattern hitherto unknown 
 to us and a pig-sty — and that was a thing no one 
 would have suspected. On another occasion our 
 advance guard was taken red-handed at the end 
 of the kitchen garden by the lady of the house, 
 who, to his intense annoyance, received him with 
 perfect kindness and good-will and offered him 
 gooseberries. Had she been thoroughly angry 
 some credit might have been got out of the 
 encounter, but as it was the taste for exploring 
 suffered a set-back. 
 
 Then came a sudden change and the great day 
 of the Sale, when we could roam about the 
 grounds at will (though we were not allowed to 
 go Inside the house among the throng that fol- 
 lowed the auctioneer) and set our minds at rest 
 about the pig-sty and the trough. 
 
 And after that — The Girl's School. It cannot 
 be said that that period, which covered several 
 years, was productive of much Interest or curiosity 
 on our part. It was In accord with our outlook 
 
70 Days of Discovery 
 
 at that stage to regard a girl's school as a very 
 monument of futility. We should have said, if 
 questioned on the point, with bitter scorn that 
 we should have to be pretty hard up before we 
 began to take an Interest in girls' schools. Clearly 
 it was the manlier course to ignore it altogether, 
 but there was no more effective method of re- 
 proving one's younger sister than to threaten her 
 with Olinda when she grew up. And yet there 
 were some few occasions when we broke through 
 this fine indifference. When pea shooters hap- 
 pened to be particularly in vogue, or perhaps at 
 the snow-balling season, certain passages did occur 
 between us. And when they were playing tennis, 
 it was almost Impossible to ignore our neighbours. 
 It became the custom for us to look on from the 
 seclusion of the Ivy at the top of the wall and tell 
 each other that It really was too funny. And 
 once an adventurous pupil actually "had the 
 cheek" to scale the wall from the far side and 
 make her way Into our summer-house ! That 
 was an amazing discovery and we were completely 
 at a loss what to make of it. We held no dealings 
 with her at all and after an earnest and prolonged 
 council of war it was decided that It would be 
 best to hush the thing up and say nothing about 
 
The Phases of Olinda 71 
 
 It to anyone. We were very thankful that it 
 never happened again, for to tell the truth it was 
 just the sort of thing that one didn't quite know 
 how to take. 
 
 I have never known what was the outcome of 
 that school — whether it had prospered so greatly 
 as to move on to higher spheres, or declined to an 
 ultimate collapse. But as far as we were con- 
 cerned It came to an end. And Olinda stood 
 empty. 
 
 As the months ran on what was left of the gar- 
 den — for It had been heavily shorn by this time — 
 became for us a strange and eerie retreat, where 
 we could find that absolute seclusion which was 
 always dear to us. It was surrounded now by a 
 close wooden fence, so that no peering eye could 
 penetrate within. The weeds came out like a 
 rash upon the drive and garden walks, the grass 
 grew high and coarse on the borders, the ivy 
 wandered far. A sparrow nested in the porch, 
 and a company of mole-hills occupied what re- 
 mained of the lawn. One would spring nimbly 
 over the fence and stand enthralled, drinking in 
 that perfect desolation. ' Then came the day when, 
 greatly daring, we pryed open the kitchen window 
 
72 Days of Discovery 
 
 and plunged Into the dank recesses of the house 
 itself. 
 
 Timorously we penetrated one by one the 
 shuttered rooms, sweeping black dust off the 
 mantel-pieces and tearing down great strips of 
 flapping wallpaper: turning on taps that would 
 not run and (splendid moment!) ringing bells 
 that resounded startllngly through the waste of 
 emptiness. We learned much that day of the 
 Infinite variety that exists In the ordering of 
 human affairs; of the unsuspected possibilities 
 that lurk In the most straightforward concerns. 
 For we were staggered by the discovery that what 
 should have been the "old night nursery" was 
 in fact the drawing-room: that positively a 
 billiard-table had occupied what should have 
 been the laundry. That opened our eyes. And, 
 furthermore, there was no sign at all of a linen- 
 press where it should have stood upon the upper 
 landing. 
 
 I do not care to dwell on the last phase, when 
 Olinda became a working-man's club, tottering 
 to bankruptcy. 
 
 When last I saw Olinda the roof was gone and 
 already a part of the upper story had been pulled 
 down. But I had little room in my heart for 
 
The Phases of Olinda 73 
 
 sentimental regrets. For a far greater tragedy 
 was in train next door, where her proud neighbour 
 (which concerned me much more closely) was 
 being still more rapidly demolished. 
 
X 
 
 THE FIREWORK SEASON 
 
 The actual blaze of glory on the night of Novem- 
 ber Fifth, while it formed a memorable and wholly 
 adequate climax to the campaign, did not by 
 any means represent all the joys of the firework 
 season. The fun began weeks before, on the very 
 day when eager watchers could report the first 
 appearance in shop windows of these splendid 
 wares. Then was there held forthwith a solemn 
 conclave, in which financial resources were care- 
 fully assessed. The amount in hand was always 
 disappointing, but one gladly reckoned in, on a 
 generous and extravagant computation, such sums 
 from various quarters as might be expected to 
 fall due before the day. It was largely a matter 
 of chance — so small was one's regular income in 
 the face of great emergencies like this. If a 
 "likely uncle," for instance, put off his pro- 
 jected visit till later in the month, the whole 
 scale of prospective investments had to be re- 
 
 74 
 
The Firework Season 7^ 
 
 luctantly revised. But when sufficient funds 
 could not be earned by any of the recognised 
 emergency methods — by walking instead of taking 
 the tram, by learning poetry or by copying out 
 the washing list — there was always a chance that 
 a unanimous and influential petition might loose 
 the purse-strings of those remote and unattain- 
 able Money-boxes which stood aloof, hoarding 
 their dead capital, on the top shelf of the library 
 cabinet. In one year of distressing penury that I 
 remember a special subsidy of no less than two 
 shillings a head was granted, but in set terms that 
 Implied no liability in years to come. 
 
 It must not be supposed that money was saved 
 up until the approach of the great day; that 
 would have been to lose half the delight of the 
 firework season. At the first possible moment 
 buying began. Indeed I have no doubt at all 
 that it would have begun in July had oppor- 
 tunity offered. For the whole of those weeks 
 one's wealth was being instantly converted into 
 terms of fireworks — one was steadily accumulat- 
 ing stock. For that most glorious Instrument 
 the firework Is but little understood by those who 
 look only at its capabilities in the moment of 
 explosion. There is much more to be got out of 
 
76 I Days of Discovery 
 
 It than that. It is not only to be let off; it is to 
 be handled, bartered and exchanged, lovingly con- 
 templated. It is to be for several weeks the first 
 thought in the morning and the last thought at 
 night. The very feel of it is almost worth the 
 money, and it becomes more dear as time goes 
 on, by reason of continued self-denial. For every 
 moment of its existence it presents a strong 
 temptation to Its owner, and by resisting It one 
 comes to love It more. In truth there is almost 
 an element of sadness In the moment of Its 
 realization. Even though it may fulfil one's 
 highest hopes with a bang more loud or a flare 
 more gorgeous than one had looked for, one 
 cannot quite forget that It Is Its death struggle, 
 its swan song. One cannot look upon Its warm, 
 blackened, empty remains without a poignant 
 moment of regret. It had been so good a fire- 
 work m Its day! 
 
 I do not know who it was that Invented the 
 great system of trading In fireworks by exchange 
 and barter. But every evening early In November 
 the schoolroom after tea became an active mart, 
 when everyone set out his box In Its appointed 
 place on the long table and worked to adjust the 
 balance between the different items of his stock 
 
The Firework Season 77 
 
 by trading with his neighbour. It was very In- 
 structive, after several active sessions, to assess 
 the value of what remained — In cash — and see 
 how one had fared in these transactions. But 
 when money was all exhausted and there was no 
 longer a prospect of being flooded with new 
 supplies all manner of fictitious values would be 
 in vogue. One bold buyer perhaps has cornered 
 the supply of Blue Devils without which no 
 assortment was complete. I have even known a 
 penny Starlight, when that grade was In special 
 demand, go for three halfpenny Golden Rains, 
 with half a dozen Chinese Crackers thrown In. 
 
 I have a vivid recollection of the personality of 
 each separate squib In all that multiform array. 
 I was not a great admirer of Blue Devils, though 
 one must, of course, show one's skill In throwing 
 them at the right moment so that they burst in 
 the air; and it always seemed to me that Golden 
 Rain (though much prized by some) was rather a 
 weak-kneed and effeminate performer. But Star- 
 light and Portfires were noble, and I always had a 
 sort of lurking affection (not shared by my com- 
 petitors) for that strange mongrel, the Flowerpot. 
 Pin Wheels were of little use, unless one adopted 
 the Ingenious method of unwrapping them and 
 
78 Days of Discovery 
 
 straightening them out. Ripraps were often dis- 
 appointing in action — but how splendid in their 
 shape and form! Even Chinese Crackers were 
 not to be despised, for there was a way of pinch- 
 ing them by which (if you were adroit) you could 
 let them explode in your hand — to the admiration 
 of younger brothers — and suffer nothing. As to 
 Prince of Wales's Feathers, I can only say that In 
 my opinion any denomination of this variety 
 below the penny is unsatisfactory. If you don't 
 keep shaking the powder down It stutters. 
 
 And so the great day came, and after a last 
 excited session the market ceased its operations. 
 Then followed the bonfire in the kitchen garden 
 and Guy Fawkes. And then on the dark lawn 
 before the house, where the stepladder and the 
 rocket-stake and the great flowerpot were already 
 assembled, the proper rites began. One could 
 look up with a depth of sympathy to the assem- 
 bled faces at the upstairs window of those who 
 had been deemed too young, too frail to take an 
 active part. And for one hour one ran wild In 
 fairyland, mid ravishing delights of eye and nose 
 and ear. For I doubt If there be anything much 
 better about a firework than the smell of It in 
 action. There followed the dressing of wounds, 
 
The Firework Season 79 
 
 for probably none of us came off unscathed; and 
 in the morning that sad fascinating hour when one 
 explored in detail every portion of the battlefield, 
 seeking relics. Here was where the first rocket 
 fell (for I heard the stick among the trees) . Here 
 was all that was left of my fourpenny Riprap, 
 blown out and rent and blackened. And here 
 among the bushes was the battered corpse of 
 Jack-in-the-Box himself, 
 
XI 
 
 SECRETS 
 
 Secrets — that is to say, admitted secrets, which 
 were whispered, treasured, and shared in holes 
 and corners — were, of course, rather an affair for 
 girls, and therefore held in fine contempt by the 
 male section of the nursery. None the less, we 
 were ourselves base enough, while maintaining 
 this outward attitude, to borrow the idea in all 
 its substance save the name. There were a few 
 cases of rare harmony when a secret was shared 
 by the whole company, though always with some 
 unworthy suspicion that one's little sister would 
 sooner or later give it away. To this order be- 
 longed the splendid experiences connected with 
 tips from benevolent relatives. For while a grand- 
 mother or an aunt would seldom make any 
 restrictions or conditions, an uncle was quite 
 certain to accompany the contribution with a 
 direct injunction to keep it dark. Not that that 
 was necessary, as we should undoubtedly have 
 
 80 
 
Secrets 8i 
 
 kept It dark in any case, for fear this sudden 
 wealth should be impounded. But even had 
 there been no possibility of interference much of 
 the zest would have gone out of the traffic in 
 tips had it not been conducted surreptitiously by 
 both parties. One would have lost that intense 
 excitement with which one came to regard the 
 departing guest. As It was, there were even 
 moments on the doorstep when it was obvious 
 to our expert intelligence that he was looking 
 round with some embarrassment for opportunity 
 and we must come to his aid, perhaps by following 
 him into the cab at the last moment with a for- 
 gotten razor strop — retained for the purpose — 
 or by sending one of our number to see him off at 
 the station. 
 
 The keeping of a secret entailed an exceedingly 
 complex line of conduct. It must be accom- 
 panied by a series of hints (not overdone by any 
 means — that was where the younger members 
 came to grief), by vague allusions, by an expres- 
 sion of mysterious superiority, by daring challenges 
 of open defiance, while those who were outside — 
 what one might call the attacking party — passed 
 through stages of sublime Indifference (a very 
 safe card, could one but have kept It up), of con- 
 
82 Days of Discovery 
 
 clliatlon and appeal, and of outraged hostility, 
 threatening reprisals. The value of a secret did 
 not consist at all in its intrinsic importance, for 
 whatever that might have been It was certain, 
 when finally exploded, to be contemptuously dis- 
 missed with the chilly query, "Is that all?" It 
 consisted entirely In the handling of it, the skill 
 with which it was kept in the foreground, the 
 length of Its course and, above all, in retaining 
 it In as few hands as possible. For Its power 
 became slowly dissipated as one after another 
 learned the truth. It was never considered 
 sporting to leave a single member out In the cold, 
 which seems to show that even in this heartless 
 warfare there were some elements of mercy. 
 
 For It was warfare pure and simple. When 
 you had been restrained from settling a dispute 
 by assault and battery, and the desire to score off 
 your adversary called for some other means, no 
 handler or more effective weapon than the secret 
 could have been desired. You could not at the 
 moment punch his head, but you could always 
 arouse his curiosity, work upon his Inqulsltlveness, 
 and by taking In an ally (who would express the 
 most profound Interest In your communication) 
 make him feel before the day was out that until 
 
Secrets 83 
 
 he knew where It was that you had been that 
 afternoon (when you came in so cautiously by 
 the stable door) life was not worth living. Simply 
 anything would do provided it was properly 
 handled. If a familiar picture had disappeared 
 from the nursery wall, and he was given to under- 
 stand that you could explain its removal if you 
 would; If he had overheard you shouting down 
 to someone below from the bathroom window and 
 you had closed it and turned away when he came 
 In; If you took to carrying with you wherever 
 you went a small brown paper parcel of alluring 
 shape, refusing to vouchsafe a reason — It was 
 enough; you had your revenge. Of course, you 
 must take certain risks In pursuit of this high end. 
 If he found out, you knew yourself to be routed, 
 disgraced, reduced to a laughing-stock, while he 
 would triumph gloatingly; 
 
 However, there were reprisals. The recog- 
 nized retort when a secret was In active operation 
 against one was to start a secret of one's own. 
 This was uphill work. For it was always tacitly 
 assumed that a secret was accidental In Its origin, 
 and here the mechanism was a little too obvious. 
 And thus the counter-secret, If I may so call It, 
 was certain to be met at the outset with scorn, as 
 
84 Days of Discovery 
 
 having been invented by you ''because you 
 couldn't find out about mine" — which, of course, 
 It was. Still, if it was a good secret in itself it 
 would begin to bite after a time. Even if I had 
 no burning desire to solve it (which I probably 
 had) I could not but admit that it had begun to 
 sap the strength of my own effort. And so the 
 situation would frequently ripen into an armistice 
 and an exchange. And then it only remained for 
 each competitor to greet with withering scorn 
 the revelation of the other, and to declare that 
 If he had known that yours was as rotten as that 
 he would never have divulged his own. And there 
 the incident would close. 
 
 The other method by which secrets would 
 come to an end — for they were never of long 
 duration — was by the process of gradual dilution. 
 There was no secret as strong as that which was 
 held by one alone, provided that it was skilfully 
 worked. The greatest success of my life in this 
 regard was an occasion when for two whole days 
 I defied the attack of a united host on the question 
 as to why it was that Uncle John had called me 
 downstairs in the middle of nursery tea — me 
 alone — to speak to him in the library. I saw at a 
 glance the exceptional value of this incident as a 
 
Secrets 85 
 
 secret, and I held to It grimly for two whole days, 
 during which I wielded real power. But they 
 were lonely days. On the third afternoon I 
 could stand it no longer, and I took a partner 
 into the concern. It was worth a good deal 
 even after that, but when — to gain a definite 
 ulterior end — I had taken in a third the game 
 was already up. 
 
 Then it had become common property (to the 
 intense disappointment of the whole assembly) 
 that Uncle John had not wished to ask me to 
 stay with him in Ireland In the summer holidays 
 (as had been feared), nor to suggest that he 
 should subscribe to the fund for a new football 
 (as had been hoped), nor yet to Inform me of a 
 proposed legacy (my sister's solution). He had 
 only wanted to know if I happened to have 
 picked up his pipe on the tennis lawn. 
 
XII 
 
 VARIATIONS ON A THEME 
 
 There Is a story told of one of our company in 
 the nursery that on an occasion when he was at 
 a tea-party he took aside a chosen ally into a safe 
 corner remote from the festivities to impart to 
 him a sacred confidence. With every appearance 
 of mystery and a full regard to the weight of his 
 disclosure he bound his companion to secrecy, 
 and the great intelligence broke from him in a 
 dramatic whisper. "I'm an author!" he said. 
 And I have every reason to believe that the 
 other was very much impressed. 
 
 But the author in question was not by any 
 means the only one. That was a summer of 
 extraordinary literary activity. The telling of 
 stories in one form or another had, of course, 
 flourished from the very beginning of things. 
 There was a time when Archie, who had a wonder 
 ful faculty for fluent and meaningless romance, 
 and an amazing ability for reproducing startling 
 
 86 
 
Variations on a Theme 87 
 
 words and phrases, used to regale my sister, 
 behind the curtains, with his perennial serial, 
 "The Adventures of a Lion." My sister was 
 enormously impressed by this narrative, as, 
 indeed, were we all in some degree, though we 
 would never have confessed it. She filled in the 
 frequent pauses with interjected murmurs of 
 gurgling admiration, and the effect partook of 
 the nature of a duet. Whenever we stopped to 
 listen we would hear something like the follow- 
 ing: — 
 
 ''And so the Lion swallowed him up, every 
 bit . . ." 
 
 "Oo!" 
 
 *'But he had a pair of scissors in his pocket. . ." 
 
 "Ooo!" 
 
 *'And he cut a hole and got out . . ." 
 
 "Ooooo!" 
 
 "And then there came an Albatross ..." 
 
 "Ooo! Oooo!" 
 
 But it was not until the advent of the school 
 story that we became absorbed in the splendid 
 possibilities of fiction. It was then that the 
 second great serial started on its long career. 
 This time I was myself the victim, the recipient; 
 and the teller was Colin, my next older brother. 
 
88 Days of Discovery 
 
 It was a profound secret between us two, and for 
 many months nearly all the spare time that we 
 spent together was devoted to it. I cannot 
 remember that it had any name, but it dealt 
 almost exclusively with the adventures of one 
 Eastham, a schoolboy. I fear that most of the 
 details of this romance are now lost to me, but 
 I seem to remember that while the hero passed 
 through a long series of exciting situations these 
 were remarkably narrow in their scope, being 
 confined indeed to two classes only — cricket 
 matches, of which there was at least one in every 
 instalment, and dark dealings with bookmakers 
 *'in the town." So deeply engrossed did I 
 become and so urgent were my demands for more 
 that the teller of the tale began to put on airs. 
 Eastham was no longer dealt out with lavish hand 
 and on every suitable opportunity; he became 
 by degrees an occasional favour, then a special, 
 rare concession. And his author found that he 
 had established — that which we were always on 
 the look-out for in all our dealings — a hold over 
 me. He would threaten to tell me no more 
 unless I became his willing slave, and I abjectly 
 consented, for I could not live at all without 
 my Eastham. The thing became a flagrant 
 
Variations on a Theme 89 
 
 tyranny, for when Colin found he could not 
 convey his demands to me In the presence of 
 other people he laid down a certain signal be- 
 tween us that should mean "If you don't do it 
 at once there will be no more of Eastham." He 
 had but to raise the first and third fingers of his 
 hand, while holding down the middle one, and I 
 knew my fate, and carried out his behest forth- 
 with. Well do I remember those two dread 
 fingers with their crushing message. I knew my- 
 self to be helpless before them, until at last there 
 came a day when I rebelled. He had left his cap 
 in the stable and I must go and fetch it. I 
 refused. Up went the two fingers. It came 
 home to me that I was paying too great a price 
 even for Eastham, and I would not go. And 
 then I made the surprising discovery which showed 
 me that had I had more spirit I need never have 
 borne the yoke. For Eastham still went on — 
 that very evening he made 93 not out against 
 All England. Then I saw that Eastham was quite 
 as necessary to Colin as he was to me. The tables 
 were turned. It was I who could now afford to 
 be an indifferent listener — to all appearance. At 
 the last I could dictate the occasions when I 
 would consent to listen. It might even have 
 
90 Days of Discovery 
 
 reached a point where it was I who could signal 
 (with upheld fingers) my commands. But East- 
 ham underwent a sudden change. 
 
 The telling of tales as an occupation was super- 
 seded by a new and more splendid achievement 
 — that of writing them. It was my sister who 
 quite unwittingly set the new fashion. She an- 
 nounced her intention of copying out the whole 
 of the "Mill on the Floss," and could already 
 show the first few sentences laboriously trans- 
 cribed in enormous, staggering print. Well do I 
 remember her joy when some facetious Grown- 
 up offered her five shillings for each completed 
 chapter. But although she never reached the 
 bottom of the page she had suggested a far 
 more glorious undertaking — original composition. 
 Within a week there was not one of us but had 
 his small black book In active operation. They 
 were, of course, all school stories, and they all 
 dealt In Eastham, or at least he figured In all of 
 them. His original author really could not 
 make up his mind whether to regard this universal 
 plagiarism in the light of flattery or to be in- 
 dignant that the rest of us had "bagged" his 
 hero. In most cases the stories were written, 
 but mine was printed, for the obvious reason that 
 
Variations on a Theme 91 
 
 It was much more like a real book. I got on more 
 slowly than the others on that account, and I 
 sometimes doubt If, after all, It was much more 
 like a real book. But It was a great time. 
 
 Those In Authority look back upon that period 
 of feverish activity (for we did not like to fall 
 short of an output of a chapter a day) as on a 
 sunny oasis In the endless struggle of our up- 
 bringing. We were all so "good," so consistently 
 *'out of mischief," though a price must be paid 
 for this Immunity In the Increased vigour of the 
 contest that took place at the time when we must 
 go to bed. The real difficulty was, where all 
 with the exception of my sister were so actively 
 creating, to command an audience for one's work. 
 But the rule was generally accepted that If you 
 would listen to my chapter I would listen to 
 yours. I cannot bu': believe that the work would 
 have gained something In originality had it been 
 possible to get on without this Interchange of 
 ideas. For as It was, the same incidents, in a more 
 or less garbled form but without any attempt to 
 veil their identity, occurred with perfect regularity 
 In all four works. When Eastham tripped up 
 the policeman, as recorded by myself, the three 
 other writers' chapters of the following day would 
 
92 Days of Discovery 
 
 find their inspiration In that episode, and when — 
 as recorded by my eldest brother — he caught his 
 friend Leach stealing money from the coats at 
 the cricket field the rest of us could hardly wait 
 till the chapter was concluded before seizing 
 book and pencil to catch that fine impression ere 
 it fled. 
 
 The volumes are no longer in existence. No 
 doubt as soon as some new interest had taken their 
 place they were treated with a contempt which I 
 cannot quite believe that they deserved. And I 
 have but the vaguest memories of the results of 
 all that keen endeavour. But at least I can recall 
 the opening words of my first chapter, which 
 would seem to show that, despite one's deep pre- 
 occupation with the game of cricket, one had not 
 quite grasped all the complexity of its technique : 
 
 *'Eastham was a very good bat. He could 
 make 79 runs. Leach could only run 23 runs. 
 Thomson could make 38, and Milton about 16." 
 
XIII 
 
 MAKING MONEY 
 
 The financial resources of the Nursery were 
 sharply divided into two classes. We all possessed 
 two sorts of money — that which was readily 
 negotiated and that which was sternly withheld. 
 We suffered from a disability (which is apt to 
 pursue one even in later life) in having our funds 
 *'tied up," so that we could by no means lay our 
 hands on them. This was chiefly brought about 
 by the hated institution of Money-boxes. There 
 they were in a row on the top shelf of the library, 
 handsomely fashioned in artistic forms, after the 
 style of castles, -ships, cricket-balls — mine was 
 like a small portmanteau, clasped at the corners 
 with brass. But one feature they all had in 
 common — a slot In the lid shaped with such 
 unholy Ingenuity that no amount of patient 
 shaking upside down could possibly recover the 
 deposit. I do not say that they were never un- 
 locked. On the approach of a birthday or at 
 
 93 
 
94 Days of Discovery 
 
 Christmas time and on certain outstanding occa- 
 sions it was possible to draw upon them. But 
 that meant an appeal to Those in Authority, the 
 stating of a case, all manner of formality before 
 the key would be brought forth. You could not 
 dip into them at will at any moment when you 
 wanted to buy things. No matter what hoarded 
 riches they might contain — and they had been 
 known to run up to two or three pounds ! — they 
 gave one no sense whatever of possession, and one 
 would gladly at any time have sold the whole, 
 had it been permissible, for a free half-crown. 
 
 The sources of supply, by which these exasper- 
 ating institutions were fed, were various. It had 
 been intended in the beginning that they should 
 be supported by contributions under two head- 
 ings, the compulsory and the voluntary. If we 
 ever wished to put in any money in addition to 
 that which was prescribed, we should be heartily 
 encouraged to do so. But the voluntary clauses 
 of the act broke down completely, and the com- 
 pulsory clauses were only enforced under the 
 most violent protest. Windfalls of all sorts were 
 apt to be impounded whenever they reached too 
 high a figure. It was no use at all to get a birth- 
 day present of half a sovereign, for that was sure 
 
Making Money 95 
 
 to go. And the whole traffic In tips from benevo- 
 lent uncles was given an added zest and interest 
 from the fact that the shadow of the Money-box 
 hung over It and It must be handled with the 
 utmost care and secrecy. 
 
 But when we thought or spoke of money we 
 never meant what was referred to with a fine 
 contempt as "Money-box money." It was the 
 real thing that we meant, which came and went 
 by methods under our direct control. As a matter 
 of fact the Interest In money, like other nursery 
 Interests, fluctuated wildly. For wrecks one would 
 be cheerfully bankrupt and entirely wrapped up 
 in less mercenary affairs, forgetting even to ob- 
 serve when the first day of the month came round. 
 At other times by every plot and plan, by every 
 effort of concentrated Ingenuity would one strive 
 to attain a decent competence. This was nearly 
 always brought about by some special call. It 
 was no use going out of one's way to amass wealth 
 without a definite object to which to devote It. 
 But let us suppose one had seen a truly gorgeous 
 steam-engine that would go In a shop, or a new 
 sort of telescope that pulled out to five times Its 
 normal length Instead of three; then a deter- 
 mined effort must be made. And there was that 
 
96 Days of Discovery 
 
 advertisement of a real printing press in The 
 Boy^s Own Paper. And that complete Magic 
 Lantern that could be worked with a night-light 
 — and talking of lanterns what about Bull's-eye 
 lanterns? Thus on ocassion the possibilities of 
 this glorious world would present themselves, 
 tumbling over one another in a sort of mental 
 cataract, and in a moment one was awake to the 
 instant need of money — heaps of money. 
 
 The official pocket-money was only regarded 
 as a sort of minimum wage. It was no use saving 
 it. That system had been given a fair trial on 
 mOre than one occasion and abandoned in disgust. 
 It called for an enormous amount of self- 
 denial with a miserably inadequate return. No 
 one would dream of depending upon pocket- 
 money for any of the larger ends of life. But 
 there were tips which sometimes came oppor- 
 tunely and there were a dozen other sources of 
 supply. The most obvious of these was to walk 
 and save the penny for your tram fare; and if 
 Old John Gardener was in charge of you, you 
 could make him walk and save his penny too. 
 And there were a good many promiscuous odd 
 jobs by which one's income could be increased 
 in one's spare time, in the words of the popular 
 
Making Money 97 
 
 advertisements. Twopence was the usual tariff 
 for copying the washing list, and sometimes there 
 were envelopes to address or newspaper wrappers, 
 which paid pretty well. But that was close and 
 wearing work and one ran the risk of having the 
 whole batch rejected on some miserable plea of 
 spelling or handwriting. 
 
 Far more profitable was the learning of poetry 
 which was really paid for, as far as I can remem- 
 ber, at a fairly liberal rate. Any way I got half a 
 crown for the Pied Piper. I know very well that 
 I am quite Incapable of such a feat now (even for 
 twice the money) but I remember almost every 
 word of It to this day. A good many uncles and 
 aunts were Involved In this poetry business, and 
 It would have been lucrative had one been able to 
 develop the practice of disposing of the same 
 wares In more than one market. But when I was 
 discovered selling Tennyson's Revenge for the 
 third time In one week this method of expansion 
 was put a stop to. Still some tidy sums were 
 accumulated In this way, and at last the steam- 
 engine was made possible. 
 
 As I look back upon all that period of stern 
 endeavour and dogged labour towards a given 
 end, one occasion stands out luridly — one bright 
 
98 Days of Discovery 
 
 occasion when I "got rich quick.'' It was all 
 very wrong, of course. He was a boy who came 
 with some callers and I know now that he must 
 have been both astoundlngly wicked and amaz- 
 ingly rich. For he took me away to the shrubbery 
 behind the stable and tossed me for sixpences. 
 It so happened that the summons came for his 
 return — the carriage was waiting — when, after a 
 fine run of luck I was four and sixpence up, so I 
 came very well out of that adventure. But he 
 didn't care. It was all the same to him! He 
 was indeed a tremendous fellow. 
 
 And then there was the great Dandelion Cam- 
 paign. It was I myself who thought of that. I 
 had so often heard complaints of the state of the 
 lawn, and I volunteered to uproot the dandelions, 
 at, I think, threepence a hundred. Within a few 
 days every juvenile member of the household, 
 each armed with an out-worn table-knife, was at 
 work upon his hands and knees, crawling hither 
 and thither, prodding and levering up the spoil. 
 And in the evenings the harvest was counted and 
 paid for, and knives were sharpened against the 
 morrow. Had we but been content with the 
 conditions a steady income for the summer might 
 have been assured. For after the stock ran out 
 
Making Money 99 
 
 were there not plantains and daisies? But we 
 became too skilful. Sidney contrived to invent 
 a new tool, with a long handle and two sharp 
 prongs, which traversed the lawn with devastating 
 effect, and when after a busy undisturbed half- 
 holiday we marched in, in force, soil-stained and 
 weary, our weapon over our shoulders and our 
 booty in a sack and demanded Twelve Shillings 
 and Sevenpence at a single scoop it was at once 
 declared that the thing had got completely out 
 of hand. 
 
XIV 
 
 THE HOTEL 
 
 When I observe the blase children of globe- 
 trotting parents, complacently sauntering in to 
 table d'hote, giving orders unabashed to waiters, 
 lolling nonchalantly in the lounge, entering large, 
 silent public rooms without a tremor, sometimes 
 a wave of pity passes over me that they should 
 so soon have come to this — and never know their 
 loss. They are simply suffering prematurely 
 from the wretched disillusionment of the Grown- 
 up. They have bartered In exchange for a swag- 
 gering indifference one of the most splendid 
 experiences of childhood. They have lost all 
 appreciation of the supreme adventure of staying 
 In an Hotel. 
 
 Adventure was the first aim and end of those 
 golden years. To let no one day be like another, 
 to pack one's life as full as possible of thrilling 
 experience, to break out In a new place whenever 
 possible, was the sum of one's persistent and 
 
 100 
 
The Hotel loi 
 
 conscientious endeavour. And adventure might 
 be arrived at in a great variety of ways — by open 
 rebellion, by exploring all manner of hidden 
 mysteries, by joyously accepting and making the 
 most of all sorts of abnormal conditions and unex- 
 pected situations that might befall. But it 
 might also be attained without any collision 
 whatever with the forces of law and order. For 
 there were times when Those In Authority, 
 entering fully Into the spirit of the thing, would 
 "take us away," for what they called a "treat," 
 — a word which we strongly resented. Sometimes 
 even the suggestion would come from one of 
 ourselves. Was not I myself the true author of 
 that tremendous expedition when we invaded 
 the Isle of Man In a body? But it would never 
 have occurred to any one of us to suggest the 
 mighty and epoch-making event that I have now 
 to describe. That was something altogether too 
 dazzling and remote; and when the tremendous 
 truth, which had already been dimly suggested 
 by sundry hints and veiled Innuendoes — after the 
 accepted style of Grown-ups — ^burst In a moment 
 upon us we were positively staggered. It was 
 Archie who broke into the nursery one evening, 
 panting and flushed. "I've found It out!" 
 
I02 Days of Discovery 
 
 he shouted. "We're going to stay in an 
 Hotel!" 
 
 After the first pandemonium of excitement had 
 subsided, we settled down to discuss and solve 
 to the best of our ability, a question that can 
 hardly be said to have been impertinent. What, 
 exactly, was an Hotel? We had seen the outside 
 of them: we had speculated idly upon their 
 interiors : and we knew very well that they were 
 much frequented by certain Grown-ups, who had 
 no fixed place of abode. But we knew no more 
 of what to expect when one had passed beyond 
 their portals than if they had been an enchanted 
 garden. And then the details of the scheme came 
 out. We were to drive, it seemed, all of us, in 
 the big wagonette, with Tom Coachman and 
 the horses. The distance was not less than twenty 
 miles. We were to come back the following day; 
 and If It turned out to be a wet afternoon the 
 expedition would have to be put off. As if that 
 mattered! That was just the way with Grown- 
 ups. They had no sense of proportion. They 
 never understood what were the vital elements 
 in an adventure. Had the distance been a 
 hundred miles through heavy sleet, what could it 
 matter with the prospect of an Hotel at the end? 
 
The Hotel 103 
 
 As it turned out rain began to fall before we 
 had got half-way. Then we were all thrown into 
 an agony of suspense. The desirability of turning 
 back was calmly debated while we squirmed in 
 silent terror lest the cup be dashed from our 
 lips. We were told, in the most matter-of-fact 
 way, that if we had to give it up it was only a 
 question of postponing it for a week. There 
 was no grain of comfort in that. It was alto- 
 gether beyond our power to peer into an uncer- 
 tain future as far as next week. If we turned 
 back all was over. Life was desolated. How could 
 we, how could we dream of going back now — to 
 the same old house and garden, to the same old 
 nursery tea, to that intolerably humdrum life 
 that Is lived outside hotels? . . . And then Tom 
 Coachman's hat blew off, and we must stop and 
 I must get out and pick It up. That decided It. 
 I have never clearly known why. And on looking 
 back I cannot see how Tom's hat can possibly 
 have affected the issue. And yet we all firmly 
 believed that that incident was the turning point. 
 Long after we would refer to it as a happy chance 
 that had saved us in a critical moment. We 
 elevated it Into the outstanding episode of the 
 day. Years after we would recall it to one 
 
I04 Days of Discovery 
 
 another in grateful memory. . . . "Lucky old 
 Tom's hat blew off, wasn't It?" 
 
 Anyhow we went on, and the sun was shining 
 brightly within the hour, which of course proved 
 that we were right. 
 
 While I remember all about Tom's hat, his 
 convulsive clutch at it as it flew, the exact spot 
 on the left side of the road where I picked it out 
 of a gorse bush, the side of the carriage from 
 which I handed it up to him, I must now confess 
 that I have but the haziest and most unsatisfactory 
 recollection of what happened in the hotel. I 
 suppose that it was all so splendid and over- 
 whelming, that one was in such an exalted and 
 intense state of mind that it passed as if it had 
 been a dream. I know that we occupied two 
 adjoining bedrooms, and that Those in Authority 
 were some distance up the passage — which was an 
 admirable arrangement. And I can vouch for the 
 fact that we put our boots outside the door at 
 night, and that one of us in the morning dis- 
 covered the number of the room chalked upon 
 the soles of them: and it may be added, that for 
 several weeks to come all the boots at home were 
 similarly treated every morning by Archie, who 
 had a love of effective detail. I know that we 
 
The Hotel 105 
 
 locked our doors and carried away the keys when 
 we went down to dinner. (Tremendous places, 
 these hotels ! You never knew what sort of 
 blackguards might be about.) And when we 
 came to compare notes at night I had counted 
 six bathrooms and Archie had only found four. 
 But then Archie had found the smoking-room, 
 though he had not dared to go in. But I am quite 
 at a loss as to what we did, how we spent the 
 evening, or what occurred on the following 
 morning. The scene at dinner alone remains 
 clear-cut in my memory. Quaking we entered 
 that astounding apartment where, as it seemed, 
 some thousands of people were all eating together. 
 Many of the handsomest and most effectively 
 dressed of them were, it is true, handing round 
 the food, and one magnificent fellow was carving 
 at a side table. One could hardly take one's eyes 
 off him. But that was not all. The magic of the 
 hotel had Invaded the meal itself. In the long, 
 bewildering succession of dishes (which had a 
 printed programme of their own) we were quite 
 unable to distinguish our two old friends — the 
 dual ingredients of every normal dinner — Meat 
 and Pudding. And there was a waiter who bent 
 down respectfully and asked you fascinating con- 
 
io6 Days of Discovery 
 
 undrums in some way relating to the food. The 
 first of these — and for my part I gave it up — 
 was "Thick or Clear?" And he called you 
 ''Sir" . . . 
 
 At last we were In bed, with no intention 
 whatever of frittering away historic hours in 
 sleep. And there was a cathedral clock that 
 chimed the quarters. And about the hour of 
 I a.m. we met with a rude shock In the shape 
 of a man, who was not content with knocking 
 at the door — not that we would have heard him 
 easily — but actually put his head Into the room 
 and told us bluntly that we must make less noise 
 as half the guests in the passage had complained 
 to him. Archie thought he was the Manager, 
 but I was not at all sure. Still there can be no 
 doubt that he was some pretty Important person 
 or he would never have spoken to us In that way. 
 Had It been a waiter we were sure he would 
 have said "Sir." And after that there was really 
 nothing for It but to go to sleep. But my habit 
 of bolting my bedroom door In hotels when I 
 retire for the night dates from that evening. 
 
XV 
 
 SENT ON APPLICATION 
 
 It was a great day when we discovered the real 
 value of newspapers. Previous to that they had 
 often been employed for the making of paper 
 boats on Sunday afternoons, and they were at 
 times worn as cocked hats. There was also a 
 method — culled from the pages of St, Nicholas — 
 by which, through a process of intricate foldings 
 and pleatings, they could be converted into large 
 ungainly boxes, which swayed perilously upon four 
 bandy legs. But we were in no way concerned 
 with their printed contents; we valued them 
 solely by their quality as raw material. The 
 Times was ever in great demand — incomparable 
 stuff for battleships. The Spectator failed chiefly 
 in point of size; while some of the evening 
 papers, flimsy and easily torn, were classed as 
 useless. 
 
 But the reading of papers was accepted merely 
 107 
 
io8 Days of Discovery 
 
 as one of the strange habits of Grown-up Persons, 
 interesting only in so far as it lent itself to parody. 
 (It went very well — In company with a pair of 
 spectacles made out of lemonade wire — if carried 
 out with pompous solemnity after the manner 
 of Uncle Henry. The scene always culminated 
 In a start of exasperation In which the paper 
 was crushed Into a ball and flung beneath the 
 table with violent words about the Stock Ex- 
 change.) But at last there came a time when 
 the daily press was eagerly scanned by the entire 
 nursery with deliberate view to its contents, and 
 we were able to discover In this unpromising 
 source material for a whole campaign of a most 
 productive and exciting nature. 
 
 With a view to encouraging the art of letter- 
 writing, which did not flourish among us, we 
 had been given permission to help ourselves to 
 stamps for all legitimate correspondence, and 
 Colin had had the wit to see in this concession 
 wide possibilities which had not occurred to the 
 rest of us. Thoughtfully he ascended, with a 
 large bundle of newspapers, to the top of the 
 nursery cupboard — a favourite haunt of his when 
 he wished to meditate in remote seclusion. There 
 he remained for the entire morning and his aspect 
 
Sent on Application 109 
 
 and behaviour for the rest of the day pointed 
 clearly to some secret project which he was 
 nursing silently. It was not till two days later 
 that it burst upon us. He had risen, to my great 
 surprise, fully ten minutes before it was abso- 
 lutely necessary and rushed downstairs to the 
 dining-room while I was still dressing. Then ha 
 dashed in upon the nursery breakfast. In the 
 middle of the porridge stage, glowing with 
 triumph. With a splendid gesture he flung upon 
 the table a long, bulgy blue envelope, addressed 
 (without a shadow of doubt) to himself. Indeed, 
 his name was there adorned with the high title 
 of "Esquire." What was inside? Of course he 
 must needs resort to the barren and exasperating 
 practice of ''making us guess," while he supped 
 his porridge complacently. But at last he broke 
 the seal — yes. It was sealed! — and took out a 
 number of printed papers, which he flung into 
 the fire, and a small metal box containing the 
 most delightful little caricature of a tablet of 
 soap. The extraordinary cleanliness of the whole 
 company that afternoon was the subject of much 
 favourable comment, but sundry bright hopes 
 that were built upon the incident were doomed 
 to disappointment. Indeed, there was a violent 
 
no Days of Discovery 
 
 reaction within the week, upon an evening when 
 we were each engaged In turn In testing the 
 capabilities of a new blacking. 
 
 For with the fortuitous departure of Those in 
 Authority to the Continent for a month the great 
 new sport was soon In full swing. The alluring 
 phrase, "Sample sent on application," became 
 forthwith our watchword. We had discovered a 
 fresh interest that carried us far beyond the 
 narrow confines of the nursery, that suddenly 
 put a new value upon newspapers, that made 
 the arrival of the post the outstanding event of 
 the day, and that brought us at once into touch 
 with countless manufacturers throughout the 
 land. By common consent our operations were 
 conducted with profound secrecy. A special 
 scout was told off every day to meet the postman 
 at the door and bring up the morning's spoils, 
 and our correspondence, which had become 
 enormous, was for the most part conducted in 
 the box-room behind locked doors. 
 
 After a time we specialized. One of us took 
 up the study and comparison of soaps, tooth 
 powders and hair restorers. Another admitted 
 only to his growing collection blotting-paper, 
 pencils, and pen-nibs. A third dealt exclusively 
 
Sent on Application iii 
 
 in patent medicines, with a special leaning to 
 popular cures for fits. But the grocery depart- 
 ment — my own — was that which scored most 
 heavily. Indeed, I was only allowed to carry on 
 this section of the concern, free from outside 
 competition, on the understanding that the spoils 
 must be ultimately divided. Even then I had 
 far the best of it. There was nothing — not even 
 the diminutive tubes of Special Cream for the 
 Complexion — to be compared with my little sack 
 of sugar, my three small biscuits in an envelope, 
 or my baby canister of Finest Ceylon Tea. Over 
 the latter we had an important meeting of com- 
 mittee to test its qualities, but so unsuccessful 
 was the result that I have always doubted if the 
 water could really have been boiling. Or possibly 
 the best tea should not be made in a tumbler? 
 Archie, the stationer, struck out a special line in 
 paints and blackings after a while, with which 
 there is no doubt he had a very happy time, so 
 much so that his province was unwarrantably 
 invaded by the Chemist, who had begun to find 
 patent medicines unprofitable — though it is true 
 he had the satisfaction of trying some of them 
 on the cat. My little sister (true to the call of 
 
1 1 2 Days of Discovery 
 
 her sex) dealt, through an amanuensis, In "pat- 
 terns" of stuffs and fabrics. 
 
 Of course we had many embarrassments. Some 
 of our urgent Inquiries elicited no reply. So 
 many of them demanded the amount of return 
 postage that depredations on the stamp-drawer 
 In the library had to be carefully regulated in 
 accordance with the supply at the moment, and 
 as the stock ran low a call even had to be made 
 upon pocket-money. But our chief anxieties 
 were connected with the behaviour of sundry of 
 our correspondents, who at times Insisted upon 
 reopening the Incident after the sample had been 
 sent and the transaction was (from our point of 
 view) complete. We would get disturbing letters, 
 pointing out that since the writer's last com- 
 munication (enclosing sample of asthmatlcal 
 cigarettes) he had heard no further from us. 
 He would be glad to have our order at our earliest 
 convenience. We were frankly baffled and not a 
 little concerned as to what was our proper course 
 in the face of this development. Discussion 
 always ended by the letter being burned without 
 reply, but we could not quite forget It. We could 
 only hope that he would not go so far as to take 
 proceedings. But there was one manufacturer 
 
Sent on Application 113 
 
 (of a new and improved blend of office gum) who 
 created a fearful scare by announcing by posK 
 card that his representative would shortly be in 
 our neighborhood and would call upon us one 
 day at the end of the week. We spent the Friday 
 and Saturday afternoons in ambush in the coal- 
 hole, and only breathed freely again when Sunday 
 morning arrived and we had heard nothing of 
 this disturbing emissary. But the Stationer went 
 so far as to insist upon returning, with acknowl- 
 edgments, the half-finished bottle of gum. 
 
 It was indeed a grand, absorbing pursuit. 
 During the weeks when it was at its height we 
 lived as in the presence of a continual birthday, 
 with packets of all shapes and forms arriving by 
 every post, and despite the experiments we carried 
 out with the spoils our private collections soon 
 reached fine proportions. It was the Chemist 
 who, quite unwittingly, gave the thing away. 
 He had a special friend outside the camp, in the 
 boy in the house opposite, who by way of develop- 
 ing a striking peculiarity had just become a strong 
 teetotaller. He had already tried to convert Old 
 Joe, the mole-catcher, to his principles, when it 
 occurred to him that useful work might be done 
 nearer home. He had been looking over the 
 
114 Days of Discovery 
 
 Chemist's stock, and must have abstracted an 
 Item from It all unobserved. For he was dis- 
 covered one evening surreptitiously, and no doubt 
 with the best Intentions In the world, putting a 
 spoonful of The One Safe Cure for the Drink 
 Habit Into his father's tea. And that was the 
 end of it. 
 
XVI 
 
 THE USES OF THE DUMMY. . 
 
 I DO not think that we could lay claim to any 
 special originality in this question of Dummies. 
 I suppose that most children, certainly most 
 lonely children, have known what it was to have 
 a familiar spirit — an imagined brother, sister or 
 friend to keep them company. It is as much 
 part of the game as the practice of inventing and 
 elaborating long, thrilling romances — in which 
 one sustained the role of hero — leading always to 
 a triumphant outcome and the confusion of one's 
 enemies; or the practice of entering Into con- 
 versation with Inanimate objects or any of the 
 other natural results of the tissue of fantasy In 
 which one lived. Familiar spirits Indeed require 
 no explanation or defence: they were — as I 
 hope to show — too obviously useful and neces- 
 sary a part of one's equipment. One could hardly 
 have been expected to get along without them. 
 They sprang, I think, from that mystery of 
 115 
 
Ii6 Days of Discovery 
 
 dual personality which so often lay in the back- 
 ground of one's thoughts. For at a time when 
 almost everything was a matter for wonder and 
 surprise, in a world which was full of discoveries 
 there was perhaps nothing more surprising than 
 one's own behaviour. One was continually doing 
 and saying things that It was hard to believe in 
 afterwards. How often have I wakened In the 
 morning In meditative mood and picked out 
 some action of the day before, as an insoluble 
 puzzle, not probably with any sense of remorse 
 or satisfaction, but with sheer Incredulity. One 
 would seem to have had such a vague and In- 
 complete Idea of what one was capable of doing. 
 The unaccountable actions were of all sorts, 
 good or bad or merely outlandish: some of a 
 lurid wickedness, others perhaps of a strangely 
 sympathetic and admirable nature. I would 
 reflect that I was bad enough in many ways, 
 but It simply could not have been I who had 
 torn up that telegram lying upon the hall table 
 In order to score off Those In Authority. That 
 was altogether beyond one's range: that was 
 felony. On the other hand, I had, candidly, 
 my good points; but my treatment of the kitchen- 
 maid, my spontaneous offer to bring in the coals 
 
The Uses of the Dummy iij 
 
 for her (because she had had bad news from 
 home) — that was quite outside my scope. I 
 knew very well that I never, on principle, did 
 that sort of thing. And so there grew the feeling 
 that some one else had done it; some one, so to 
 speak, who had popped in and taken possession 
 of me for the moment — my familiar spirit. 
 
 I remember well how the thing began. It 
 was when I was trying to explain away an act of 
 outstanding virtue, which had naturally offended 
 my allies and had considerably bewildered me. 
 Old John Gardener had forgotten to come in 
 for the letters. Ever since that awful episode of 
 the telegram I had had an exaggerated idea of 
 the vast importance of all postal communica- 
 tions. It was now four minutes past eight, and 
 the post went at 8.10. The distance was not 
 less than half a mile. And I happened to be 
 tremendously busy at the time with a cap pistol 
 that needed repairs. Yet I seized the letters 
 and sped at the very top of my pace, arriving 
 with them just in the nick of time. I was duly 
 rewarded for this noble action. But I had never 
 thought of that. Why had I done it? Colin, 
 who was a good deal annoyed — partly at this sort 
 of "sucking up" to Those in Authority smacked 
 
Ii8 Days of Discovery 
 
 of disloyalty; partly perhaps because he hadn't 
 thought of doing it himself — wanted to know 
 why. He supposed, in his surliest manner, that 
 I expected to score somehow. I assured him 
 nothing had been further from my thoughts. 
 He pressed me. Why? And I was quite at a 
 loss. "I don't know," I said at last, not without 
 a natural irritation. ''I don't believe I did do 
 it. It must have been my Dummy." It is useless 
 to inquire where I got the word from, but that 
 was the origin of Dummies. Each one of us set 
 one up forthwith. 
 
 Their first use was simply to explain away such 
 incidents as I have just related. They proved 
 invaluable. Their co-operation was indeed most 
 comforting and satisfactory as time went on. 
 It was not Archie who made the calf swallow a 
 cabbage with a string tied to it and afterwards 
 pulled it around the yard. It was his Dummy. 
 It could not have been Colin who shut up the 
 hens in the conservatory, but it might very 
 easily have been his Dummy. One had, of course, 
 to suffer the consequences of such acts, but it 
 was some comfort that we knew, and we alone, 
 who were responsible. 
 
 But after a while Dummies began to enjoy 
 
The Uses of the Dummy 119 
 
 new powers. If yoti had any unpleasant duty to 
 perform, it became the custom to send your 
 Dummy, as a representative. If I were captured, 
 owing to culpable negligence on my part, to 
 accompany Auhority upon an afternoon call, 
 you may be sure it was not I who went — though 
 admittedly it appeared to be so. The ordeal 
 had to be gone through to the bitter end, but it 
 was not nearly so bad as it used to be In the 
 old days. I had at least the happy consolation 
 that this poor fellow was only my Dummy and 
 that I w^as at home playing rounders. And in 
 the same way the sort of relatives who insisted 
 on kissing you — and that was a bad moment — 
 little knew that they had really failed of their 
 Intention, and it was only your Dummy who had 
 suffered this indignity. 
 
 We did not all treat our Dummies alike. My 
 little sister, who occupied an obscure position In 
 most of our undertakings, suddenly adopted a 
 method which we could not but admire in this 
 regard. Our reason for not ourselves imitating 
 it was due to a feeling that it was peculiarly 
 suited to her sex, though why that was so I am 
 at a loss to explain. She had a whole committee 
 of Dummies. And to these she would gravely 
 
I20 Days of Discovery 
 
 submit any new problem that occurred for 
 decision. There was Mabel, who always took 
 the cynical and pessimistic view. There was 
 Alice, who was simply horrid. Cynthia was so 
 good and kind but very stupid: and Selina had 
 red hair and talked too much. The only part 
 that these played in her life (for she never grasped 
 the more elaborate operations of the Dummy) 
 was that of discussion and debate, but she spent 
 many hours in consultation with them. For the 
 rest Archie had the habit of sending forth his 
 Dummy upon all manner of quests and adven- 
 tures. It was his office to go out Into the world 
 and do all the things that his master was re- 
 strained from doing, and there was one occasion 
 when after a fearful collision with the police he 
 was locked up for three weeks, and Archie had 
 to do himself all the little jobs that by rights 
 belonged to him, eagerly counting the days till 
 his release. This always seemed to me rather an 
 unjustifiable and fantastic development. The 
 essence of my Dummy was that he was always at 
 hand, ready to change places with me In a 
 moment, as occasion demanded, though I would 
 sometimes, when he had had some particularly 
 unpleasant job to perform, allow him as a reward 
 
The Uses of the Dummy 121 
 
 to stay up for half an hour after I had gone to 
 bed. 
 
 Dummies were thus of the greatest possible 
 practical use, and they were also, In times of 
 loneliness and distress, a real help and comfort. 
 There was a day when two small boys were 
 tossing In bed in the same room in the horrid 
 throes of chicken-pox. All attempts to while 
 away the time had failed, and the mocking sun- 
 shine poured In through the window, along with 
 the voices of those more fortunate ones who 
 had not yet fallen beneath the scourge. Of course 
 It didn't do to cry, but still . . . 
 
 ''Never mind," whispered Archie. "It*s all 
 right really. Our Dummies are out there, having 
 a good time !" 
 
XVII 
 
 WHITE. WEATHER 
 
 It is a deplorable thing to lose one's taste for 
 snow. There Is no more certain sign of advancing 
 age. It means that one has ranked oneself for 
 ever on the side of the Grown-ups. It is equiva- 
 lent to losing one's taste for chocolate cream in 
 slabs and for walking on the top of narrow walls 
 and for climbing trees, and for taking violent 
 exercise immediately after lunch. It seems, In 
 fact, that one has reached the point of giving up 
 nearly everything that Is worth doing, that one 
 Is no longer capable of entering into the purest 
 forms of high adventure. It Is possible perhaps 
 to avoid the whole misfortune of growing up, to 
 save at least some shreds and tatters of one's early 
 possessions, and surely such a splendid gift as 
 snow should be among them. I cannot believe 
 that we need fall so low as to look out of the win- 
 dow of the club shaking our heads, while the air 
 
 122 
 
White Weather 123 
 
 Is full of scurrying flakes, and talk about what a 
 beastly mess the streets will be in to-morrow. 
 Have we no prick of memory, and do we see no 
 vision and hear no voice from the past that 
 brings back to mind what snow once meant to 
 us? 
 
 It meant everything! It was by all odds the 
 most glorious of the unforeseen events of the 
 year. One would lie awake at night in the rest- 
 less hope of It. One would spring out of bed at 
 the dawn and draw up the blind, quivering with 
 anticipation. One would welcome it with shouts 
 of delight — it was quite impossible to sit still 
 and pay any attention to one's lessons If it came 
 on unexpectedly — with pagan rites and Invoca- 
 tions, watching It with a painful, strained 
 anxiety minute by minute, fearing a slackening of 
 its force, dreading any lightening of the stone-grey 
 pall above from which it tumbled, dull and dark, 
 as one looked up against the sky, to change — 
 oh, joyous miracle ! — to twinkling white as it 
 passed by. One would tear oneself away to hide 
 one's head awhile in sofa cushions and wait and 
 wonder: then to return and see If it was gaining 
 ground. And when it began to "lie" ! At 
 first a film of grey, upon the grass, deepening, 
 
124 Days of Discovery 
 
 deepening. Then the drive would begin to whiten 
 and the trees to carry a light tracery. And now 
 the grass is white, with only single stalks and 
 tufts emerging, the gravel of the drive has lost 
 its pebbly surface — the flakes are banking deep 
 at the foot of the window pane, the trees are 
 loading heavily. And now the line between 
 drive and lawn Is submerged. All is a flat expanse 
 of dazzling white. It is lying! It Is realy lying, 
 and falling still, and getting heavier! It is all 
 glorious, all too good to be true. Every circum- 
 stance of the dull drab life of yesterday is blotted 
 out, forgotten, rendered remote, lost in the 
 splendid miracle of to-day. Let us rush forth 
 with a whoop Into the thick of It, toss it and 
 fling it, tramp through it, shake it in clouds 
 from the trees, tumble and roll In it In sheer 
 delight. 
 
 And let us by no means forget to spread a 
 handkerchief upon it that we may see how dirty 
 and how crumpled it will look against that per- 
 fect purity. 
 
 Thus did we hail Its coming. But the miracle 
 was more sudden and the wonder more startling 
 when It came by night. For one thing it was 
 amazing that that bewildering transformation 
 
White Weather 125 
 
 should have occurred so silently. One would 
 have expected at least a mighty rumbling, a 
 shaking of foundations. But to have no warning 
 whatever, to become aware perhaps as one opened 
 one's eyes of something strange in the quality 
 of the dim light in the room, to leap headlong 
 to the window and wake the household with the 
 reverberations of the great announcement — 
 ''Snow! Snow! Snow!" It was like a thunder- 
 clap of good fortune. 
 
 And when it went — when it grew heavy, grey 
 and sugary, charged with moisture, when great 
 rents appeared in the garment and vivid grass 
 showed through — when the drive was ploughed 
 into deep mud, and the trees let fall their burdens, 
 we mourned its passing with a keen regret. At 
 last there would be but little patches here and 
 there — the remnant of the drift between the 
 hedges — a shrinking bank behind the wall. We 
 would husband it earnestly to the last. The 
 Snow Man could still be mended as long as a few 
 handfuls of material remained. Even the Snow 
 House must be sacrificed to his superior claim, 
 to keep him going as long as might be. But the 
 end must come. Most tragic of all when rain 
 demolished all the splendour. (Can I not hear 
 
126 Days of Discovery 
 
 some soulless city man remark ^'I hope it will 
 change to rain before night," and do I not grieve 
 for him?) For to see all our Immeasurable gift 
 washed away In drip and slush and mud, was to 
 taste bitterness Indeed. 
 
 The muffled sound of wheels. . . . Old John 
 Gardener passing beneath the window, a shovel 
 over his shoulder and a broom In his hand, 
 grumbling (but, of course, he didn't mean It: 
 wouldn't he be the first to lend his old clay 
 pipe and a walking stick for the Snov/ Man?) 
 . . . A kicking and scraping at the back door 
 where the butcher's boy has arrived. ... A 
 sudden avalanche off the roof on to the con- 
 servatory. ... A cat floundering In awkward 
 leaps across the lawn. . . . Birds that leave 
 dainty tracks behind them. . . . And always 
 muffled footsteps . . . muffled wheels. Why, 
 even from the nursery window It was a new 
 world. 
 
 And when one went forth Into the thick of 
 It! At the very outset there was a danger of a 
 flood in the yard where the culvert had got 
 choked. And all about us, lavishly heaped on 
 every side, tons of incomparable material for 
 more good ends than one could think of In a day. 
 
White Weather 127 
 
 There was the Snow Man of course. He came 
 first, If only from our natural desire to husband 
 and preserve, for when all else was gone he would 
 remain to us for some few days at least — a dwind- 
 ling pillar. Then the Snow House, hollowed out 
 with spades from a heaped, solid mass. After 
 that perhaps Snow Steps, Snow Statues. And 
 through them all a running fire of Snow Balls. 
 You see there was work for months if only it 
 would last. The one burning question of the 
 day was always — Will It "bind" ? Binding snow 
 was a rare but perilous delight. For well we 
 knew that It was thawing. The very fact of Its 
 great excellence was also the warning of Its Im- 
 pending departure. And feverishly, madly we 
 made the most of It. It was hard indeed to be 
 dragged into the house at all on days of binding 
 snow. Surely to go in for dinner was to allow 
 the petty routine of every day to shackle and 
 confine a festival? Was there not time to eat 
 when It was dark? For meanwhile great cylin- 
 drical rolls of white were being pushed to and 
 fro, growing and swelling as they went, picking 
 up the snow behind them so cleanly as to leave a 
 long green ribbon In their wake, and becoming 
 at last so huge that two or three must push 
 
128 Days of Discovery 
 
 together, and it was high time they were headed 
 for the slope of the bank, where they might 
 finish ponderously down hill. 
 
 And even all that is but the beginning of the 
 tale. There were sledges and toboggans. In the 
 garden much might be done, by using the two 
 banks and making a hard beaten track between 
 them. It must be trampled down, and beaten 
 hard, and — if there was prospect of a frost at 
 night — watered laboriously. Thereafter by care- 
 ful cultivation and incessant use we would work 
 up the pace (with the toboggan that old John 
 had made) till we could run both banks with 
 ease and far across the bottom lawn. And once, 
 when the conditions had been all in favour and 
 the snow had stayed a week, we were even able to 
 reach the wall at the far side and steer gingerly 
 past the summer-house. Then would we supple- 
 ment old John's toboggan with a motley crew of 
 other racers — an old teatray (which spun slowly 
 round upon its course) , a piece of corrugated iron 
 (most obstinate to steer) the shiny leather cushion 
 from the schoolroom sofa (but there was trouble 
 about that). And there were greater toboggan- 
 ing adventures far afield. There was a reckless 
 course down a steep street, to the terror of the 
 
White Weather 129 
 
 normal traffic. There were the sand-hills, where 
 slopes were long and smooth, and the speed 
 terrific. . . . 
 
 Indeed It was a grievous thing to lose one^s 
 taste for snow. 
 
XVIII 
 
 FROST 
 
 One of the earliest and most painful periods of 
 acute self-denial that I can remember was that 
 during which I was saving up to buy a ther- 
 mometer. It was not by any means so bad as the 
 time that I broke Miss Jones' umbrella. That 
 was a painful matter altogether. I had broken 
 it in a sense deliberately. That is to say, I had 
 been told not to lean upon It, as It would not 
 stand my weight, and having a different opinion 
 upon that point I had continued to lean upon it 
 with a careless and detached air until It suddenly 
 gave way. Therefore It was ordained that I 
 must pay for the repairs. Miss Jones, I knew, 
 would not have insisted had I been able to get 
 her alone and talk It over with her, but Those 
 in Authority Intervened. One and Ninepence it 
 came to, which — with the official pocket-money 
 ruling at sixpence a month — left me a pretty 
 dreary prospect to look forward to. The accumu- 
 
 130 
 
Frost 131 
 
 latlon of the first shilling was not so bad. I 
 happened to come in for a windfall and besides I 
 had started with a grim determination. But the 
 next sixpence dragged horribly, and, at the last, 
 when I handed in the whole amount. It was with 
 the feeling of an escaped prisoner and with a 
 lively distaste for umbrellas from which I have 
 never quite recovered. 
 
 The thermometer was not nearly so bad as 
 that. It was a self-imposed trial for one thing, 
 and the monthly rate had risen to ninepence by 
 then. But it was a big effort all the same. It 
 argued a remarkable firmness of purpose to go 
 forward as I did then, week after week, austere, 
 ascetic, till I had almost forgotten the taste of 
 chocolate cream. But I never regretted It. The 
 truth is that I had begun to mistrust the readings 
 of the thermometer on the wall outside the dining- 
 room window. For one thing it was a full six feet 
 off the ground, and I was convinced that It was 
 also affected by the heat from the room. Anyhow 
 it had stood at 36 one day when Ice was forming 
 on the puddles. I could never feel the same faith 
 in It after that. 
 
 But when I had my own I soon found It pos- 
 sible to obtain magnificent readings, which quite 
 
132 Days of Discovery 
 
 put to shame the thermometer upon the wall. 
 If the wind was in the south when the frost 
 came I would put it on the ground in the Field 
 Below where it got the whole force of the blast; 
 if the frost came from the north I would mount 
 it on the High Trellis. I would consult it at 
 night with a box of matches, and again before 
 breakfast in the twilight. And thus I got it 
 almost at its best. Often in the Twenties. More 
 than once below Twenty. On one memorable 
 occasion as low as 12 degrees. That was in the 
 morning. The morning readings generally beat 
 those taken over night. One went to bed so 
 deplorably early. Meanwhile that lumbering old 
 instrument on the wall would be dragging along 
 five or six Degrees behind, as if unable to believe 
 in the full extent of the glorious dispensation of 
 the frost. Decidedly my money was well in- 
 vested. 
 
 My thermometer was never of the slightest 
 interest to me when it recorded anything over 
 40 degrees. A comparison of one warm day 
 with another, the difference between the sun 
 and shade temperature simply counted for 
 nothing. All that was as bad as consulting the 
 barometer. It was simply Weather, We had 
 
Frost 133 
 
 no interest in weather. But when it got well 
 down into the thirties it began to show prospect 
 of frost, and frost meant Ice. 
 
 We longed for its coming with an almost 
 painful anxiety. We did all we could to welcome 
 it. The thermometer, although indubitably the 
 chief of our recording implements, was by no 
 means the only one. My eldest brother pinned 
 his faith to a wet rag, hung on a bush — not too 
 wet, but nicely wrung out to the proper con- 
 sistency. He would consult it frequently and 
 moisten it at intervals: and at the very first sign 
 of stiffening he would call us all together to 
 rejoice with him. I can see him now as he used 
 to come sadly in to tea shaking his head, after a 
 disappointing inspection. "Still limp," he would 
 say, "still quite limp." There was another who 
 worked with a shallow bowl or saucer and fre- 
 quently raised a discussion on the interesting 
 inquiry as to whether boiling water froze quicker 
 than cold water, as we had been told. Another had 
 a tumbler on a chosen spot on the bank, and would 
 bring in — on good mornings — a beautifully shaped 
 cone of ice, not quite solid but with the water 
 locked inside. And there were bottles, of course. 
 If you cork a bottle in the ordinary way and the 
 
134 Days of Discovery 
 
 frost Is keen It will push up the cork some Inches 
 at the end of a spoke of Ice, In the most delight- 
 ful manner. And — better still — If you fix the 
 cork firmly enough with wire and there Is a really 
 tremendous frost (so we believed, though I must 
 admit we never proved It) It will break! That, 
 of course, Is simply the Ice trying to get out. 
 You may guess that after a really big night's 
 work, when even the out-of-date old Instrument 
 on the wall had spoken of great cold, It was a 
 splendid and most moving thing to sally forth 
 In the white, misty, breathless dawn to visit our 
 devices and count up our gains. Sometimes you 
 could hold out Sidney's rag by one corner, 
 horizontally, like a stick. 
 
 And there Is white, clear, crackling cat-Ice on 
 the puddles . . . and the Pit Is skimmed over 
 with a noble sheet . . . and everything Is dry 
 and clean and hard . . . and every little twig 
 and blade picked out In white. . . . There are 
 exquisite sprays and branches, pennons and spikes 
 on the windows In the house . . . and a frozen 
 sponge In the bathroom. It Is too soon as yet 
 to speak of skating. For no one must venture 
 on the Pit till old John Gardener has safely 
 walked across It. But, If there be no change by 
 
Frost 135 
 
 the afternoon, by Jove, we'll start to make the 
 slide to-night! 
 
 By the light of a candle set on the ground, 
 burning serenely in the still air, the walk beyond 
 the lawn was banked at either end. And then 
 back and forth we ran, interminably, with jugs 
 and buckets, from the tap in the pantry, lavishly 
 drenching he whole length of the asphalt. Back 
 and forth from the light and warmth within to 
 the chill, outer air, straining and spilling as we 
 went, and ever encouraged by our chief who 
 would assure us that a little more would do, just 
 a little, and it was actually freezing on already. 
 Thus we would lay up reckless joys — always pro- 
 vided that the rag be not limp and forlorn — for 
 the morrow. 
 
 I had a secret method of my own, an impious, 
 pagan method for encouraging the frost. I 
 cannot remember a single occasion on which It 
 bore fruit, but I had strong faith in it all the 
 same. When first the Pit was coated over, long 
 before Old John's first adventurous expedition 
 upon it was even thought of, I would fling out 
 upon the glittering surface a silver coin, secretly 
 and unobserved. One did not part with three- 
 pence without a pang. But I had great faith. 
 
136 Days of Discovery 
 
 The theory was that thus one tempted Fortune 
 in the hope that one's courage woud bring a fit 
 reward. If the frost held till the Pit would bear, 
 I would recover my imperilled offering. And if 
 not it would be lost to me for ever. 
 
XIX 
 
 THE GALE 
 
 Weather Is only of Interest to small boys when it 
 becomes startling and aggressive. Generally we 
 took It very much as It came. There was plenty 
 to do In the house when It rained: and we were 
 practically Impervious to variations of heat and 
 cold. Indeed, I think we hardly noticed the 
 weather. We never commented on It In the usual 
 course of events. To be able to remark that It Is 
 a fine day, when that fact is obvious to any one 
 who cares to look. Is essentially a fatuous and 
 grown-up accomplishment. What we demanded 
 of the weather was abnormal situations. We were 
 always hungry for anything that was capable of 
 upsetting the daily tenor of our life, anything 
 that created new conditions, anything that caused 
 confusion and opened up opportunity. When 
 Miss Gardener^s younger sister took scarlet fever 
 and a new governess had to be found while she 
 was in quarantine, it was all sheer gain. When 
 
 137 
 
138 Days of Discovery 
 
 the bow-window was being put In to the nursery 
 and we had to migrate to the spare room, with 
 much hauling back and forth of furniture, we 
 rejoiced exceedingly. It was all so splendidly 
 Inconvenient. And when, there being serious 
 Illness In the house, one or more of us had to be 
 boarded out In Inferior lodgings, hasUy acquired, 
 It was magnificent. It Is hardly too much to say 
 that we lived In the daily hope of something 
 going wrong. What we wanted was chaos. 
 
 In this regard the weather sometimes came to 
 our aid. Snow was, of course, the most valuable 
 dispensation, and frost, while It lasted, kept us 
 in a quivering state of delight. But extreme heat 
 — capable of prostrating Grown-ups — was not to 
 be despised. Thunder-storms, floods and hurri- 
 canes and even fog, if it were dense enough, were 
 welcomed with ecstatic glee, In violent contrast 
 to the apprehension of more reasonable beings. 
 Indeed In these matters we cannot be said to 
 have been In sympathy with our parents and 
 guardians, whose relief at the passing of the 
 visitation great as It was cannot have been greater 
 than our bitter disappointment. 
 
 Especially we disagreed about wind. Grown- 
 up People, even when It wasn't dangerous, always 
 
The Gale 139 
 
 appeared to find wind irritating and objection- 
 able. Perhaps they resented being banged about: 
 perhaps they did not appreciate losing their hats: 
 possibly they found it difficult, if a shower came 
 on, to steer an umbrella. Of course the truth is 
 that the first use of wind is to bang one about: 
 that there is no more merry sport than chasing a 
 hat, especially among traffic: that an umbrella 
 (contemptible at other times) becomes a splendid 
 Instrument of joyous motion if opened out before 
 the gale, so that one has dreams of a conceivable 
 development, if only the wind Is strong enough 
 and the umbrella large enough, In which one 
 will be lifted off one's feet, hallooing gloriously. 
 It was not only In the uses to which it might 
 be put, however, that wind appealed to us. There 
 were days when It seemed to get Into one's blood. 
 Inspiring, uplifting, lashing one Into a frenzy as 
 nothing else would do. The roar of It in the 
 branches . . . the howl of It about the chimney- 
 pots . . . the tearing, rending force, bending and 
 swaying all before it . . . the mad dance of 
 scurrying leaves . . . the whisk and sudden grip 
 of It! . . . Did It not Invite one to rush forth 
 with open arms, with upturned face, deafened 
 and tossed and buffeted, with the breath blown 
 
140 Days of Discovery 
 
 out of one's mouth and the dust blown into one's 
 eyes — yelling and prancing on a headlong course? 
 It was a fine sensation to brace oneself and peer 
 Into the teeth of It: It was a most singular and 
 delightful sensation to turn one's back and lean 
 up against It, boldly adventuring one's weight 
 and sprawling at full length If there came a 
 sudden lull. And there were, of course, plenty of 
 special sports and games that belonged to It. 
 You could mount a sail on the go-cart and tool 
 gaily about the asphalt. You could sport with 
 Inflated pillow-cases: and you would not fall 
 to go down to the cliffs to see the tide come in. 
 
 And, with any luck, there was pretty sure to be 
 Damage. There were days when even a tour 
 through the streets meant dodging flying chimney 
 pots. One could count on something giving way. 
 There was at every point at least a chance of 
 crashing destruction. Once I met a flying cab, 
 and that was perhaps the greatest event of all. 
 For there is nothing that takes one's breath away 
 like a flying cab — whirled up the street backwards. 
 Even loose slates counted for something In reckon- 
 ing up the bag. 
 
 And then the great question arose of the be- 
 haviour of the trellis. It ran between the bleach- 
 
The Gale 141 
 
 ing green and the kitchen garden and was a full 
 eight feet high. And It was very old and Infirm. 
 There had hardly been a notable gale In which 
 the trellis had not sagged and suffered. It had 
 been boosted up a dozen times with fresh sup- 
 ports. And It was morally certain that some 
 day It would come down at a blow In Its whole 
 swishing, crackling length. You may guess that 
 we did not mean to miss that moment. As a 
 matter of fact it fell at the last in the middle 
 of the night and we were left with the barren 
 satisfaction of gloating on the wreck. 
 
 In the house next door, which had a large 
 expanse of garden, lived an Irate old gentleman. 
 He was a great asset. I am convinced that no 
 family of small boys can be considered to have 
 been brought up In circumstance of unfettered 
 opportunity without an Irate old gentleman next 
 door. Our feud with him dated from a time 
 when he had deliberately refused to send back 
 tennis balls — although they can have been of no 
 earthly use to him. We watched him from the 
 top of the great wall. We made daring Incur- 
 sions Into his territory. Sometimes, with a piece 
 of bread on the end of a string, we fished for his 
 hens. But the matter had never reached the point 
 
142 Days of Discovery 
 
 of a deliberate complaint to Those in Authority, 
 as our relations with the Girls' School on the 
 other side had done more than once. It was 
 the Gale that brought it to a head. We would 
 not have thought of such a thing at any other 
 time, but, as I have said, wind gets into the very 
 blood of a small boy and makes him capable 
 of anything: and so our perennial desire to 
 score off the old gentlman found suddenly a 
 brilliant outlet. I had been tossing up my cap 
 to see how far it would travel, and it sailed high 
 across the wall, and thus the idea came to me. 
 It was a Sunday afternoon and— in contrast to 
 the hurricane outside — peace reigned within the 
 house. There was little chance of being caught. 
 With all the newspapers we could lay hands on 
 we made our way to the top of the wall, clinging 
 on precariously by the Ivy. The plan was both 
 beautifully simple and exceedingly amusing. You 
 had but to tear up the papers, roll each piece In 
 a rough ball and toss it high in air, where it was 
 sent flying into the old gentleman's garden. They 
 ran across the lawn, caught in the bushes, some of 
 them hanked long streamers In the trees. Many 
 were held up flapping against the conservatory. 
 Some flew on over the far hedge to decorate the 
 
The Gale 143 
 
 kitchen garden. One at last caught the sundial 
 (which had been our special objective). Twice 
 we had to send Archie Into the house for fresh 
 supplies of material. And by the time we had 
 finished the whole garden lay before us a dis- 
 graceful desolation of torn newspaper. Wouldn^t 
 there be a row ! 
 
 We went In, meek but triumphant, to nursery 
 tea. We talked as best we could of the ordinary 
 affairs of life. We ate and drank demurely. But 
 all the time we were straining our ears for the 
 signal that was bound to come. We were quite 
 resigned: we had had our fun: had shown the 
 old gentleman what happens to those who retain 
 other people's tennis balls: we had made that 
 garden look like a fool. Had we not counted a hun- 
 dred and twenty-four of our . Ah, there It 
 
 was at last! A violent, urgent ringing of the 
 front door bell. 
 
XX 
 
 DEVICES . AND . CONTRIVANCES 
 
 From the moment when it begins seriously to 
 ape and imitate the behaviour of those who are 
 grown-up childhood loses its savour of spontaneity 
 and surrenders its precious point of view. There 
 was, of course, an earlier imitative age when we 
 copied most assiduously the habits and manners 
 of Those in Authority. But that was a travesty 
 pure and simple. We were not trying to be as 
 they were or to do as they did. We were simply 
 trying to take them off and to show them up. 
 It was a dramatic form of parody. In this spirit 
 one would settle solemnly down to read a vast 
 volume from the library, holding it at an angle 
 to catch the light and laboriously adjusting 
 borrowed pince-nez, or one would shave with the 
 back of a comb, facing the mirror with startling 
 contortions of expression. There were many 
 light-hearted jokes of that sort in vogue. The 
 144 
 
Devices and Contrivances 145 
 
 calling of cabs, the tipping of waiters, the 
 answering of telephones, the pompous attitude 
 on the hearthrug with back to the fire, based upon 
 Uncle John; the appreciative sipping of port, 
 based upon Uncle Henry — all these were joyously- 
 performed. But it is at the time when one 
 begins to think that it might really be of interest 
 to read a book from the library or that it might 
 really be a fine thing to have to shave In sober 
 earnest, that the true spirit of the Golden Age 
 fades rapidly away. 
 
 For the guiding principle of boyhood is a wide 
 freedom from all order, conventionality, tradi- 
 tion; a rooted determination not to tread the 
 beaten track, to choose its pursuits for Itself and 
 evolve Its Interests for Itself. A boy may be kept 
 within a fairly rigid programme of daily habit In 
 the outward practical life. But all that Is to 
 him no more than the Inevitable and monotonous 
 framework of his existence. In the chosen 
 enthusiasms that consume his strange, eager little 
 heart he cannot be coerced. He will royally 
 disregard elaborate arrangements for his enter- 
 tainment, however carefully they may have been 
 prepared, In favour of some queer and seemingly 
 
146 Days of Discovery 
 
 futile occupation of his own that he had thought 
 of himself, that belonged to himself. I remember 
 the oft-repeated complaint that no one ever 
 knew what I would do next. But I never knew 
 myself. That was why life was so vivid and 
 entrancing. It had no foregone conclusions. It 
 was a long procession of the unexpected and the 
 improbable. 
 
 I was always much engrossed with problems of 
 communication by new and original methods. 
 I am now convinced that no one has less aptitude 
 for mechanics or engineering than I. But in 
 those days I wrestled with self-appointed diffi- 
 culties. There was no reason for it whatsoever. 
 If one did want to send a message from the 
 nursery to the bathroom, the quickest and most 
 direct method was either to go in person or to 
 shout. But I must have my own contrivance for 
 this absurd and inadequate purpose. Even if it 
 could only be laid down when the traffic was sus- 
 pended, even if it was liable to be pinched when 
 the door swung to, even if the door had to be 
 held open with a chair as long as it was in action, 
 I was well satisfied when I got through my mes- 
 sages — about nothing at all — by speaking tube. 
 I used a telephone later on that could actually be 
 
Devices and Contrivances 147 
 
 extended as far as the dining-room, by means of 
 two little drums connected by a string. But I 
 never really cared for that. It had not been my 
 own idea. It smacked of the shop. 
 
 But a really fine effect was produced by means 
 of pulleys. And this I elaborated greatly. Even 
 now I cannot quite accept a pulley as a mere 
 mechanical device. I must regard it with a more 
 friendly eye as an engine of adventure and 
 romance. A string was stretched tight from the 
 window of the spare bedroom to the lawn out- 
 side, and on this ran a pulley with a small basket 
 depending from it, which could be drawn up and 
 down with a cord. It gave me a fine sense of 
 achievement to sit at the open window, with my 
 accomplice down below, hauling up and letting 
 down all manner of assorted cargoes. Well did I 
 know that if others wished to deposit a cricket ball 
 for any reason — surely the contingency might 
 occur — on the seat beneath the holm-oak, they 
 must pass down two flights of stairs and along the 
 passage and out of the front door, while I could 
 do it in a moment, sitting here. And I took a 
 rich delight in making up the cargo of the most 
 delicate and perishable goods, watches, clocks, a 
 china vase from the drawing-room, to prove the 
 
148 Days of Discovery 
 
 high efficiency of my means of transit. Pulleys 
 became a wholly absorbing passion for the time. 
 Nearly every upstairs window had its line of 
 communication; then string gave place to wire, 
 and the distances were increased as I threw out 
 my receiving stations far and wide. The climax 
 was reached when we penetrated to the roof of 
 the pottlng-shed, and that night the basket 
 swung bobbing down the line with a lighted 
 lantern showing red within, full of suggestion of 
 messages despatched from a besieged citadel, of 
 signals to smugglers in the offing, or of rescues 
 in a stormy sea. 
 
 The highly ingenious episode of the mirrors 
 was the outcome, if I remember rightly, of one 
 of those enforced days in the house — with a cold 
 — when one's Inventive faculties were put to the 
 test. It probably could not have been carried 
 to a successful Issue had not Those In Authority 
 been away from home that afternoon, and that 
 would have been a pity, for I think It will be 
 admitted that It was a thing well worth the 
 doing. It Is surprising how many mirrors there 
 are in a house when they are all gathered together. 
 I had no lack of material. My object was to make 
 a perfect chain of vision from the night-nursery, 
 
Devices and Contrivances '149 
 
 down two flights of stairs and round three corners, 
 to the storeroom In the basement. It took no 
 little delicacy of manipulation, but I built It up 
 one stage at a time from the bottom end, with 
 every mirror tilted so as to gather the reflection 
 of the one before, till at last with a shout of 
 triumph I had the thing complete, and lying on 
 my bed upstairs I could see Colin making faces at 
 me beneath the storeroom gas. What unimagina- 
 tive Grown-up would ever, I ask, have thought 
 of that? 
 
 Perhaps it was the mirrors that suggested 
 searchlights and all the grand possibilities of a 
 bright tin lid or piece of glass catching and flashing 
 forth the rays of the sun. It was good fun to 
 make this beam of light travel round the room. 
 Illuminating dusty corners and startling unsus- 
 pecting persons with a sudden dazzling shock. 
 But It was far better In the open air. And the 
 proudest moment of my brief career In the great 
 world of signals, messages and communications 
 was when I found myself In a ferry-boat far out 
 In the river and by preconcerted arrangement 
 could see and glory In the flashes of my accom- 
 plice In the garden on the hill two miles 
 away. 
 
l^o Days of Discovery 
 
 I am only at a loss to understand why all this 
 early promise should have come to nought, and 
 why Marconi and the rest should now have the 
 field entirely to themselves. 
 
XXI 
 
 WHEN THE BURGLARS CAME 
 
 It actually happened: there was no make- 
 believe about it. It was probably the most 
 tremendous event of our whole childhood, the 
 most staggering, suggestive, romantic. It was a 
 whole chapter out of a real detective story en- 
 acted before our very eyes. It brought the 
 burglar home to us as a real criminal who broke 
 in the real houses of real people. He was no 
 longer a glorious abstraction, like the Pirate and 
 the Brigand. Furthermore, it completely upset 
 the ordinary tenor of our life, and anything that 
 was capable of doing that was always welcomed 
 with glee; and it gave us fine thrills of terror 
 which added much to the spice of existence. It 
 was a time of awestruck whispers of solemn con- 
 claves, of dark surmises and sinister reflection. I 
 suppose that Grown-up Persons must have found 
 it a time of anxiety and annoyance, but it meant 
 so much to the nursery that surely on balance 
 
 151 
 
152 Days of Discovery 
 
 the household may be said to have gained rather 
 than lost by the visitation. Besides, all the stolen 
 goods were recovered — which was rather dis- 
 appointing from our point of view and savoured 
 of anti-climax. 
 
 The real hero among us was Sidney, who came 
 out of the affair with flying colours, regarded with 
 envious eyes for the part that he had played. 
 It is true that he had slept through the crisis and 
 known nothing of it till the morning, but at 
 least he alone had come into actual contact with 
 the housebreakers. He slept at that time on the 
 ground floor, and they must have looked In upon 
 him while engaged upon their unholy activities, 
 for they had — and It just shows how much they 
 feared him as an opponent — they had actually 
 locked him in! His first knowledge of the Event 
 was when he found himself a prisoner In the 
 morning. But the fun had begun before that. 
 It began at 6.30 a.m., with the hysterics of the 
 cook — and no wonder. For these dreadful men, 
 in a spirit of reckless levity, had actually fixed 
 up a sort of scarecrow on the kitchen table before 
 taking their departure. 
 
 There followed an hour of panic and amaze- 
 ment of running up and down stairs, of fetching 
 
When the Burglars Came 153 
 
 assistance, of proclaiming conflicting theories, of 
 heated argument and general confusion. And 
 after that the thrilling period of investigation 
 and discovery. It Is not to be supposed that we 
 were allowed to be present while this was in 
 progress. After a hasty toilet, in which we must 
 assist each other, for no outside help was to be 
 looked for, we were kept safely out of the way 
 as far as possible by a distracted under-nurse, 
 from whom little information could be elicited. 
 But a scout would escape from time to time, and 
 as the first startling facts came to light the report 
 of them soon filtered through to us. We were 
 enormously impressed at the very outset by the 
 serious, set purpose of these desperate men, who 
 had actually removed the cake and laid it care- 
 fully upon the pantry shelf while abstracting the 
 silver basket in which it had reposed. We felt 
 at once that these were no ordinary pilfers, else 
 they had hardly left the noble cake behind. 
 They had taken five coats from the front hall! 
 They had taken the Money-boxes — Our Money- 
 boxes ! — from the shelf in the library. At this 
 point a more rigid censorship was established. 
 We must. It seemed, eat our breakfast (just as on 
 any ordinary day) and ask no more questions. 
 
154 Days of Discovery 
 
 But despite all efforts to suppress our legitimate 
 curiosity we managed to find out in the course 
 of the day, by a variety of means, most of the 
 known facts and to piece them together to our 
 complete satisfaction. Much was picked up by 
 overhearing indiscreet servants imparting the 
 latest information to one another. Something, 
 but not very much, was picked up by pumping 
 old John Gardener, who, by the way, had become 
 a person of enormous importance — consulting 
 with policemen, investigating upon his own 
 account, dismissing with asperity the reporter 
 of the local paper, generally overlooking opera- 
 tions. 
 
 As each new fragment of information came to 
 us a whispered consultation would take place 
 upon the nursery sofa in a white heat of excite- 
 ment. They had got in by the kitchen window 
 (quite an easy feat, as we knew well) ; they had 
 broken one of the teaspoons to see if it was silver 
 (experts without a doubt). They had taken the 
 big epergne with the stags on it (pity that that 
 should go into the pot, for no doubt they would 
 melt it down). There was a strong impression 
 (quite unsupported by evidence) that they had 
 been armed with revolvers. Finally there was 
 
When the Burglars Came 155 
 
 the dramatic Incident of the desk In the library. 
 That was the climax of the story, and even to 
 this day the patched desk remains to tell the tale. 
 A part of the lid had been chipped away with a 
 chisel (or let us hope with some more unholy 
 tool, known only to the profession), but before 
 it had been forced open an interruption must 
 have occurred. They had fled, with the job 
 but half complete, and there was no doubt that 
 the desk contained an enormous sum of money. 
 
 There were already three separate theories In 
 the field as to where they had surmounted the 
 wall, but a splendid clue had been discovered In 
 the shrubbery by old John Gardener. (What a 
 man for a job of this sort!) There could be seen 
 footprints, no less, guarded by a policeman, and 
 covered by a plank, lest they should be effaced. 
 This was where they had stood watching the light 
 in the night-nursery till it went out and the 
 moment came for action. We shuddered when 
 we thought of that silent vigil beneath our very 
 windows, picturing to ourselves these two aban- 
 doned men (fingering revolvers) approaching 
 their nefarious work. Later a part of the blade 
 of a broken penknife came to light in the 
 kitchen window. Here was a certain clue. We 
 
156 Days of Discovery 
 
 should be all right now. And yet one might have 
 hoped that they had forced the window with 
 something more professional than a penknife. It 
 ought to have been a jemmy. We began to feel 
 that they were losing cast^. It was rumoured 
 that the policeman had already spoken of them 
 as mere amateurs. 
 
 After the first excitement had gone by and life 
 had resumed its normal lines we had the greatest 
 difficulty in gathering any further information. 
 It was adjudged best that we should be kept in 
 ignorance and allowed to forget the disturbing 
 episode. No one would tell us anything of the 
 chase and the capture. No one would even refer 
 to the Event. Except that Sidney now slept 
 upstairs, everything went on as before. But 
 after a time stray facts escaped the censor. There 
 was some talk of a landlady who, peering through 
 a keyhole, had thought it strange to see "silver 
 stags" on the floor of the room; and of one mis- 
 creant who had basely left his accomplice in the 
 lurch, with a heavy trunk to transport by night, 
 and vanished. And then the lost property re- 
 appeared. It was all over then? Not quite. For 
 a full month later came the news that the ab- 
 sconding accomplice had been taken in a city In 
 
When the Burglars Came 157 
 
 the Midlands — with the broken penknife in his 
 pocket! But we could never make a coherent 
 story of the sequel. We were cruelly starved of 
 information, and could only surmise the course 
 of events, picture to ourselves the great scene at 
 the trial, and guess at the length of the sentence. 
 After all, it was perhaps as well that we should 
 begin to think of something else. It was a glow- 
 ing, thrilling episode. It made a magnificent story. 
 For some time it cast a halo of romance about us 
 in our dealings with the children in the house 
 opposite. But these great gains were not attained 
 without a price. It was not pleasant to dream of 
 burglars. It became the custom to leave the gas 
 on until one was asleep. For a time one did not 
 go alone into the garden after dark; and if one 
 happened to wake in the night a disturbing vision 
 would immediately present itself — of two masked 
 figures in the shrubbery below. 
 
XXII 
 
 PAINS AND PENALTIES 
 
 There was nothing drastic, nothing forcible 
 about the forms of punishment which chiefly 
 appealed to Those In Authority, and which I am 
 to suppose contributed their quota to the forma- 
 tion of the character that I now possess. Far 
 be it from me to attribute to these methods any 
 measure of success in that endeavour, if one is to 
 judge them only by results. But I have always 
 held them In high esteem, both for their perfect 
 simplicity and for the undoubted mastery with 
 which they obtained their immediate object. 
 Castlgation, fine or imprisonment would have 
 been, I know, more easily endured, and therefore 
 less effective than this admirable and artless 
 system of punishment by boredom. It was 
 nothing more than a forced pause in the headlong 
 course of one's life, the imposition of a period 
 of Inactivity, uneventfulness, and therefore In- 
 tolerable dulness. In later life it may well be 
 
 158 
 
Pains and Penalties 159 
 
 that one would find it no great hardship to have 
 to sit for an hour on a chair and do nothing — 
 indeed, I think there are days with most of us 
 when we would gladly welcome such a programme 
 were there anyone of a sufficient authority to 
 enforce It. But it was not so then. And to be 
 sent to bed an hour before one's usual time would 
 to many of us now be a luxury and a satisfaction. 
 Then one regretted bitterly that one lost hour 
 which could never be recovered. 
 
 The punishment of sitting on chairs was de- 
 rived, It may be, from the ancient institution of 
 the stocks; certainly It was related to It, In that 
 one was thereby subjected to the jibes and sar- 
 casm of the passer-by. If one had a brother 
 engaged at the time on any engrossing or exciting 
 pursuit It was natural that he should bring it into 
 the room where one was thus detained and spread 
 It forth and gloat over It; while through the 
 open window came joyous shouts of freedom, 
 hardly called for by the nature of the occasion. 
 And there one sat with set teeth and clouded 
 brow, going through with It to the best of one's 
 poor ability, trying to concentrate one's ever- 
 wandering thoughts upon some subject that 
 would help the time to pass, trying above all not 
 
l6o Days of Discovery 
 
 to look at the clock; though ever and anon one's 
 eyes would be drawn there by a dreadful fascina- 
 tion. The jaunty and casual air with which one 
 had taken up one's position had barely outlasted 
 the first five minutes: It had been followed by 
 a state of wriggling impatience that grew ever in 
 intensity. Of course a whole hour was a tremen- 
 dous sentence — I fancy it was equivalent to about 
 three months' hard labour in later life — and no 
 bird escaping from the fowler's snare can have 
 felt a greater relief and exultation than the 
 prisoner when at last the minute hand would 
 creep round again to its starting-place and he 
 could kick the chair away and scamper forth. 
 
 To be sent to bed an hour before one's time 
 carried with it a certain sting that added greatly 
 to its mortification. It was not so much a ques- 
 tion of It being before the usual time, as of it 
 being before one's small sister. That was an 
 Indignity, an encroachment upon one's just 
 rights. But quite apart from that It was terrible 
 to have the day cut short. I like to think of that 
 and to remember that there was a time when 
 every separate day was a special gift and a vast 
 opportunity, when It was a poignant loss to have 
 It even thus curtailed. But on those occasions 
 
Pains and Penalties i6i 
 
 when I was the victim of this sad experience 
 there came at last to me a certain fortunate 
 philosophy which was infinitely comforting. For 
 I reflected that the sooner I was safe in bed and 
 sound asleep (and the two were almost simul- 
 taneous) the nearer I had come to To-morrow. 
 In a way one might count the episode, if one 
 reflected calmly, as a gain. For one was actually 
 nearer by a whole hour than those others, still 
 downstairs, to To-morrow. And splendid as 
 To-day had been it was never comparable with 
 To-morrow. 
 
 The dreadful experience of sitting on chairs 
 reached its climax on a memorable Saturday when 
 we had forgotten that one of Those in Authority 
 would return from the office early in the after- 
 noon instead of after tea. I know not how It 
 came about that the moated castle we had built 
 was allowed to degenerate Into a pool of liquid 
 mud, or which of us it was that had conceived 
 the Idea of playing a new form of hunt-the- 
 slipper In Its horrid depths, but when the sport 
 was at Its height the gate from the Field Below 
 opened and we remembered — that it was Saturday. 
 We were caught, one might say with literal truth, 
 red-handed. The sentences were very heavy, 
 
1 62 Days of Discovery 
 
 as was inevitable, and on the same evening, when 
 they were carried out, every sitting-room in the 
 house was requisitioned, and for a silent hour 
 each held its wriggling victim on a chair. So 
 fully was the available space occupied indeed 
 that Sidney was relegated to the summer-house; 
 and I, who was only ''doing half-an-hour,'* on 
 the theory that I had been led astray, had at 
 least the satisfaction of adjourning there, when 
 my own time was up, and making faces at him 
 through the window. 
 
 A sort of combination of these two forms of 
 punishment was tried once, I remember, on a 
 Sunday when we escaped from going to church 
 by hiding in the rhubarb. It was not that we 
 objected to church in any special degree; it was 
 rather that we could not resist the rhubarb, 
 which at that time had grown long and rank and 
 splendidly dense. It was such a perfect hiding- 
 place that we had only to find an adequate reason 
 for hiding, and to escape from church did as 
 well as any other. It was splendid to hear people 
 calling one's name within a few yards of where 
 one lay, when one could actually peer out and 
 see their legs. And when all was still we crept 
 forth and ht^2in to wonder and discuss "how 
 
Pains and Penalties 163 
 
 long we would get." It was decreed that we go 
 to bed In the afternoon! But that as a punitive 
 experiment failed of Its object. It was an In- 
 novation, and therefore Interesting . It was 
 almost an adventure. To be In bed In broad sun- 
 shine, when one was quite well! It was alto- 
 gether too amusing a situation to depress. 
 
 But by far the most effective form of punish- 
 ment to which we were subjected was the dread 
 Apology. It is hard In later life — It Is, I think, 
 especially hard for newspaper editors and Mem- 
 bers of Parliament — to apologize. It Is almost 
 impossible. In my experience, for a small boy. 
 Well do I remember a hideous day of dark re- 
 bellion when this awful task was put upon me. 
 We had been throwing snowballs at the pupils 
 next door as they came out two by two from the 
 gate of Ollnda and one at least of them had found 
 its billet. I was adjudged the culprit, not because 
 I was the eldest, nor yet because I had first thought 
 of it, but because I alone had succeeded, where 
 all had tried, in hitting the mark. And th.it 
 rankled deeply. It was decreed that I call on 
 the Lady Principal and apologize. For the rest 
 of that day I was torn and tortured by a strange 
 and mordant shame. I shunned the rest of the 
 
164 Days of Discovery 
 
 company and brooded in seclusion. And then 
 with a sort of wild unthinking dash I seized my 
 cap and ran, never stopping for a moment rill 
 I had pulled the bell. In broken, half-defiant 
 tones I got It over. The lady, to my great sur- 
 prise, made little of It, and talked of the pleasure 
 of snowballing, and asked me to stay to tea. I 
 think she understood what I had been through. 
 And I returned an hour later with a calm and 
 equal mind. But the Incident had scored itself 
 deep upon my fickle memory. I never now throw 
 snowballs at girls' schools. 
 
XXIII 
 
 THE BEAST IN THE HEDGE 
 
 I BEGIN to relate at last the true story of the Beast, 
 in the certain and depressing knowledge that it 
 will not and cannot be believed by any rational 
 person. To the reader it must ever be that 
 least satisfactory form of narrative, a mystery 
 without an explanation. In cold matter of fact, 
 it may appear to many something worse than that 
 of an untrue statement quite unsupported by 
 proof. I am afraid I cannot help that. Child- 
 hood is so full of mystery, of unreality, of ques- 
 tions without an answer, of effects without cause, 
 and a child lives so completely in a realm of 
 fantasy, that for myself I have ever freely 
 accepted the Beast as a phenomenon belonging 
 to the Golden Age, and quite in harmony with 
 the magic atmosphere of a world that was new 
 every morning. 
 
 I do not so much mind being told that the 
 whole thing was a figment of our imagination — 
 
 165 
 
1 66 Days of Discovery 
 
 though I do not believe it for a moment — ^but I 
 will not be told that our Beast was a weasel, a 
 fox, a cat, a badger, or any other known quad- 
 ruped, for it was not. And, further, I will not 
 be told that it had escaped from a menagerie. 
 Have I not diligently searched the Zoo and found 
 there nothing even remotely like it? 
 
 The affair of the Beast stamped itself upon my 
 memory as a splendid and vivid incident, a revela- 
 tion to be treasured in retrospect, and shared 
 with my two companions as an experience that 
 belonged to us alone. We have always shunned 
 prosaic explanations and belittling solutions of 
 the problem. For we are severely loyal to our 
 Beast. We are quite clear that there is nothing 
 to explain. If It was Magic — well, I suppose we 
 may let it go at that. It only remains to relate 
 the whole history of the affair from my own 
 recollection of it, which is perfectly adequate to 
 the smallest detail. 
 
 We were playing — we three — on the lawn at 
 the foot of the garden one bright and sunny 
 afternoon, when the air was full of the sour, 
 sappy smell of fresh-cut grass arid the stillness 
 of the lazy hour was over all things. There was a 
 short, steep bank leading down to the bottom 
 
The Beast in the Hedge 167 
 
 lawn, which was bounded by the Walk and the 
 old thorn hedge. Immediately beyond the hedge 
 was a four-foot wall of stone, marking the drop 
 to the level of the Field Below, and in the roots 
 of the hedge were holes and crannies where one 
 could crawl in and lie invisible from either side. 
 It was a favourite hiding-place, and we were 
 familiar with every yard of it. We had for the 
 moment finished our game — a sort of develop- 
 ment of croquet with the added spice of interest 
 supplied by pitching the hoops on the slope of 
 the bank, for we were ever incapable of playing 
 any game according to its accepted rules — and we 
 were resting listlessly upon the steps, when we 
 were startled by a sound. 
 
 I am at a loss quite how to describe it, though 
 I believe that I could still imitate it faithfully. 
 Something between a cough and a bark, let us 
 say, but very minute and unassuming. Yet it 
 arrested our attention, and we were all three 
 looking straight at the hedge when the Beast 
 appeared. It hopped up from the lower level 
 among the roots, resting its forefeet upon the 
 turf; perhaps I should say it "bobbed'^ up, 
 just as one has seen a stoat rising in the grass to 
 listen. There it was in the full light of day, 
 
1 68 Days of Discovery 
 
 looking straight at us. For some few seconds 
 it remained motionless, taking In the situation, 
 then It shook Its head, sprang up on to the turf, 
 ran along the hedge with a sort of eager, pattering 
 gallop, looking neither to the right nor the left, 
 for about thirty yards, paused for a moment, 
 and dived back again out of sight. There had 
 been nothing alarming about Its appearance, and 
 we lost no time in rushing over to the spot where 
 it had gone out of sight. Diligently we searched 
 the hedge and the Field Below, prodding In all 
 the crevices and turning up the fallen leaves. 
 But we found no trace. The Beast had vanished. 
 I have never met with It again, and I do not 
 expect to do so. But I know that should It ever 
 come across my path I shall have no difficulty 
 whatever In recognizing It. 
 
 And now I must describe It — and here you will 
 laugh at me. It was perhaps eighteen Inches in 
 length, and Its colour was of a foxy red. It gave 
 one, when running along the hedge so that one 
 had a full side view, a strong Impression of being 
 tapered off. That is to say. It fell away In a sort 
 of wedge-shape, from a bold head and shoulders 
 to a small, sloping back, weak little hind-legs, 
 and a sleek, dwindling tail like a rat. I am in 
 
The Beast in the Hedge 169 
 
 difficulties when I come to describe Its head and 
 face, for while it bore a very close resemblance 
 to a full-grown lion — there is no question about 
 its mane, which was very clearly marked — there 
 was somehow about it (I know it is absurd) a 
 strong suggestion of a horse. Perhaps I cannot 
 put it more clearly than to say that while it had 
 the features of a lion it had the expression of a 
 horse. It shook its head curiously. There was 
 nothing, as I have said, alarming or savage in 
 Its aspect. Rather was It a merry little beast, 
 extraordinarily active and alert. Its coat would 
 appear to have been rough rather than sleek, 
 and It was well proportioned In Its way. The 
 only point that seemed Incongruous was its feeble 
 little tail. I am afraid I can say no more of Its 
 bark. We only heard It once and then quite 
 indistinctly. 
 
 It is a preposterous story, Is It not? I hope 
 no one will waste time on any fruitless efforts 
 at Identification. Rather take It from me that 
 this beast cannot be whittled down and classified 
 — that that was simply how it was. As soon as 
 it had disappeared, we returned to the bank and 
 sat down to face the situation. First we must 
 compare notes as to our various Impressions. 
 
170 Days of Discovery 
 
 On all leading points we were entirely agreed. 
 It was the same thing that we had seen. There 
 was some slight discussion upon the question of 
 the tail, one of us likening it rather to that of 
 a cat. The tail I have given, I should explain, 
 is my own tail. But there were no other dis- 
 agreements. The question then arose as to 
 *Vhat we were to do about it." The matter 
 was one of tremendous importance, and we must 
 decide upon some common line of action before 
 we mixed again with our fellow-men. And here 
 the eldest and wisest of the trio declared our 
 line of conduct. We must keep it dark, he said. 
 It was no use. We would not be believed. We 
 would certainly be laughed at. He for one was 
 not going to subject himself to that. We knew 
 what we knew. Let us keep it to ourselves. And 
 for some years the secret was loyally kept. I 
 think my relations with my two accomplices owed 
 a good deal to the Beast. It was a powerful bond 
 between us, and in later life when the time came 
 when we confessed the incredible experience we 
 were always ready to support and corroborate 
 each other. 
 
 Even now that strange, glowing, common 
 memory remains. My two accomplices have 
 
The Beast in the Hedge 171 
 
 travelled far since then, and In the course of 
 their journey they have no doubt, like others, 
 found something of disillusionment, much to 
 call forth scepticism. But I know well that even 
 now either of them will readily endorse this 
 statement that I have made — save, perhaps, in 
 the matter of the tail; there I must be allowed 
 to hold my own opinion. It belongs to the cate- 
 gory of a clear and definite experience. They 
 are loyal as ever to the memory of the Beast. 
 And let me ask my reader ere he dismiss with 
 contempt this humble narrative, has he not also. 
 If he will pause and search for It, some treasured 
 memory of years ago, that Is akin to this of mine; 
 some vivid, clear experience that he cannot defend 
 which yet would leave behind a certain sense of 
 loss were it explained away? 
 
XXIV 
 
 THE COMING OF COURTESY 
 
 The assimilation of new ideas may be regarded 
 as the chief business and occupation of the 
 nursery. The tram conductor's method of 
 sharpening a pencil, the trick of the butcher's 
 boy of wearing his cap backwards, old John 
 Gardener's red handkerchief, Uncle Henry's 
 violent method of blowing his nose — each of 
 these was in its turn matter for consideration; 
 each had to be weighed, and either dismissed as 
 impracticable or incorporated forthwith among 
 one's daily habits. From every side and through 
 all manner of different channels new ideas kept 
 presenting themselves with bewildering rapidity, 
 and while many of them were no doubt accepted 
 quite unconsciously, others must be subjected 
 to a deliberate process of examination before 
 they could be confidently adopted, often with 
 grave searchings of soul. 
 
 172 
 
The Coming of Courtesy 173 
 
 To no small extent one's conduct and deport- 
 ment were, of course, shaped and modified by- 
 coercion from without. At every turn one came 
 up against a certain meaningless code of small 
 restrictions, known as Manners. It was no use 
 fighting against that. Purely with a view to a 
 quiet life, you had to make concessions there; 
 and this was all the more easily done as the de- 
 mands made upon you in this respect were of a 
 wildly unmeaning nature — sufficiently annoying 
 no doubt to one who preferred to choose his own 
 course even in the smallest details, but perfectly 
 harmless in themselves. Really if It gave Those 
 in Authority any pleasure to see you taking soup 
 noiselessly and by small Instalments, you would 
 hardly care to make a fuss about It. Your attitude 
 was akin to that of the smiling prize-fighter who 
 was belaboured by his wife and family: "It 
 pleases them, and it doesn't hurt me." Again, since 
 they preferred to make a special point of It, you 
 could no doubt find other and more subtle 
 methods of conveying your exasperation than 
 by slamming the door. That was better In 
 the long run than the humiliating exercise, 
 often repeated, of coming back and shutting it 
 quietly. 
 
174 Days of Discovery 
 
 It was by more or less conscious imitation for 
 the most part that one fashioned one's ever- 
 varying conduct and behaviour. But it seems to 
 me, as I look back upon it, that the process was 
 a very curious one, obscure and indirect. For 
 it was not by observation of Grown-up Persons 
 that hints of value could be obtained. They 
 belonged clearly to a different world, wholly 
 artificial and remote, governed by no compre- 
 hensible laws, and only to be imitated in a spirit 
 of hilarious ridicule. Their actions were for the 
 most part unaccountable and their habits were 
 generally to be honoured in the breach. And yet 
 as time went on one was approaching more and 
 more to their standards without directly admitting 
 the soundness of them. It was as if their customs 
 and observances had to filter down from the high 
 lever to the lower through some channel that we 
 could accept and understand. Thus we would 
 never have dreamed of admiring the view from 
 the drawing-room v/indows simply because we 
 had Invariably heard it admired by visitors, but if 
 the boy in the house opposite (who had been to 
 London) expressed any satisfaction in the pros- 
 pact one had to reconsider one's attitude. There 
 
The Coming of Courtesy 175 
 
 might well be something admirable In It after 
 all. 
 
 It was an enormous work of civilization 
 amounting almost to a complete reversal of our 
 whole outlook upon life that was compassed by 
 these means within a few short years. The dark 
 age of barbarism, when Grown-ups were a race 
 apart, when girls were a negligible and inferior 
 order of being, when might was right, when 
 refinement was the outward sign of weakness and 
 effeminacy (all very well for girls), must give 
 place to consideration for other people, to some 
 measure of gentleness, even to some measure of 
 humility. But the process was not carried out 
 Imperceptibly or even by gradations. Rather 
 was it in the nature of a series of sharp 
 shocks. 
 
 There was a time when clean finger-nails were 
 not only a wholly unnecessary adornment but in 
 themselves a folly and extravagance. They 
 savoured of foppery. They aroused direct op- 
 position In the mind of one who took a vigorous 
 and healthy view of life. I remember when It 
 seemed to me, quite honestly, that a hand In 
 which each nail was monotonously clean and 
 
176 Days of Discovery 
 
 symmetrically pared could hardly be looked upon 
 as the hand of a man, In the best sense. And it 
 distressed me to find this miserable foible adopted 
 by one whom I whole-heartedly admired for many 
 excellent qualities, not the least of them his 
 ability to turn cart-wheels and his startling skill 
 In making paper windmills. I remember reflect- 
 ing upon the strange mixtures that one met 
 with In human character. I supposed I must 
 overlook It, try to forget It. But what a thunder- 
 ing good fellow he would have been had he not 
 fallen Into this sad weakness ! There came a day 
 when I found my cousin Peter, older by some 
 years than I and no small hero In my eyes, 
 lustily plying a nail-brush. This was a direct 
 challenge. 
 
 I remonstrated with him, jeered at him. I 
 pursued him for the rest of the day with sarcastic 
 comments, and I was so far successful that he 
 gave up the practice for a time. But he soon 
 returned to It, and was not again to be shaken 
 from his resolve. And for a while I was as one 
 who had lost a friend and ally. It was to me as 
 If he had gone over to the enemy, and I could 
 view It In no other light. He had practically 
 admitted the justice of the tyrannous and op- 
 
The Coming of Courtesy 177 
 
 pressive code beneath which we lived. He had 
 taken up his stand as the champion of Manners. 
 Yet I could not hold out. I would find myself 
 looking furtively at my own hands in odd mo- 
 ments. I was no longer quite satisfied about 
 them. I began to wonder what they would 
 look like if I — as a mere jest — were also to 
 cleanse and pare my nails. And at last, one 
 evening when the coast was clear, shamefacedly 
 I crept into the bathroom. 
 
 Thus also came the rudiments of Courtesy, as a 
 new revealing light upon our path. For myself 
 I remember vividly the moment of its coming 
 and the shock that I sustained. I cannot date 
 any startling change in my way of life from that 
 hour; the new pervading influence worked slowly, 
 and it is only too probable that its mission is not 
 now complete. Yet it was a sudden conversion, 
 shattering my former ideals, setting up fresh 
 standards in their place. 
 
 Sidney, my eldest brother, had been spending 
 a whole summer holiday with Uncle John in 
 Ireland, and had come back with a bewildering 
 wealth of new habits, new pursuits, new expres- 
 sions with which to permeate the nursery. We 
 were playing rounders in the Field Below and it 
 
178 Days of Discovery 
 
 so happened that, in taking a drive at a full- 
 pitch, he hit me with some force in the eye. It 
 was excruciatingly painful, but I forgot the pain 
 in a moment in sheer amazement at his subse- 
 quent behaviour. For he strode up to me at 
 once, put a hand upon my shoulder, and — said 
 he was sorry! He — to me! Now we had of 
 course learned the use of the perfunctory apology 
 in dealing with Grown-up Persons. It was 
 employed glibly enough if one trod on the toe 
 of a caller. But that was only Manners. That 
 an accidental injury inflicted upon one of your 
 brothers could possibly call for any expression of 
 regret (beyond that of telling him he was a fool 
 for getting in the way) was so astounding a dis- 
 covery that I could only continue the game as 
 one in a dream, and sought solitude in the potting- 
 shed as soon as it was over. There I sat on an 
 upturned box wrestling with this new situation. 
 Had it been anyone else I should have laughed 
 it to scorn. But Sidney could not be wrong. If 
 he had done it it must — incredible though it 
 might seem — nevertheless be the right thing 
 to do. 
 
 When at last I came in to tea I was no longer 
 satisfied that my former way of Hfe had been so 
 
The Coming of Courtesy 179 
 
 perfect as I had believed it to be. I was face to 
 face with a new vista in human relationships. I 
 was beginning to suspect that I should have to 
 start all over again. 
 
XXV 
 
 IN THE TRAIN, 
 
 I THINK there was no date in all the year, not 
 even Christmas Day, that stood for so much In 
 the estimation of the nursery as that of the 
 migration in July from England to the North. 
 And yet I do not believe that we looked much 
 beyond it to the weeks that were to follow, the 
 summer weeks of freedom and the endless days 
 packed full with vivid interests far afield. Rather 
 was the central object of our burning expectation 
 the journey and the train. For myself I may 
 safely say that there was only one night in the 
 year when sleep forsook me, except when I fell a 
 tossing victim to the toothache, and that was on 
 the eve of this, our annual departure. It was 
 Idle to attempt to compose for slumber a mind 
 so ardently ablaze with bright anticipations. We 
 would seem to have chosen quite capriciously 
 the proper opportunities for festival, and I cannot 
 remember that the journey home in October 
 
 180 
 
In the Train i8i 
 
 ever ranked as one of them. But the journey in 
 July loomed large In the imagination weeks ahead. 
 I sometimes wonder just how we would have 
 regarded the modern corridor express had such 
 been our conveyance in those days. No doubt 
 to move along the passage, and especially to 
 cross from one coach to another — where It clanks 
 underfoot — would ha^^e been no mean adven- 
 ture. To lunch In the dining-car would have 
 been of course tremendous, were it permitted. 
 But it is more than likely that that would not 
 have been in the programme; at least it must 
 not be reckoned on. Again, it would be very 
 good to enter the guard's van simply by opening 
 a little door — there is often a dog there, chained 
 to the wall and longing for companionship, a 
 calf in a sack, or a hamper full of fowls, besides 
 the piled luggage, well worth Investigating in 
 itself. Yet on consideration I strongly Incline to 
 the belief that though for those of riper years 
 the corridor train may be a vast advance in travel- 
 ling methods, for small boys it is in no way to be 
 compared with the old system of separate car- 
 riages. For the essence of the thing was the 
 splendid isolation of one's reserved compartment. 
 Here was a seething train, full of restless, hurry- 
 
182 Days of Discovery 
 
 ing persons, a heterogeneous crowd, drawn out, as 
 it were, Into a long thread and packed away into 
 their seats. And in the very heart of the con- 
 fusion was our place of refuge, reserved by means 
 of a beautiful blue ticket with our name writ 
 large upon It, where none might break In upon 
 us. For those few hours while the gay world 
 slipped by on either side it was as much our own 
 as the cupboard under the stairs, except for the 
 presence of Authority, and even more Inviolate, 
 for did not a cheerful guard come up and lock 
 you In? 
 
 The better to mark the great occasion, which 
 was to be equipped with every luxury, we had 
 set to work some weeks before to save up sweets. 
 Sundry sticks of chocolate-cream fell In one's 
 way In the ordinary course of life, and Those In 
 Authority kept a store In the dining-room side- 
 board of other welcome — if all too wholesome — 
 sweetmeats, which were doled out at proper 
 seasons. Sometimes we had a penny or two to 
 spend: occasionally we gained possession of 
 divers pieces of preserved ginger at dessert. 
 There were many sources of supply; and when 
 all these, with splendid self-denial, were set aside 
 in a cardboard box in one of the drawers In the 
 
In the Train 183 
 
 spare bedroom (for who would ever think of 
 looking there?) they made a notable agglomera- 
 tion by the time the day arrived; so that upon 
 the journey one could really have enough, and 
 no need to consider every mouthful with refer- 
 ence to the next. But sweetmeats were not the 
 only form of hoarded treasure. If anything of 
 note in those few weeks had come our way as 
 like as not we had obeyed the instinct to "save 
 it for the train." I, who had a birthday some few 
 days before, was always well equipped, and each 
 of us would bring his contribution — of a new 
 whistle (most appropriately used on entering into 
 tunnels), a new knife (not to be employed upon 
 the company's property), or a new paint-box, with 
 which one could do no more than test the colours 
 with a licked finger, for lack of water. But quite 
 apart from all these occupations, there was always 
 lots to do in a train. 
 
 We had to find out in the first place whether, 
 supposing we had not got a ticket, it would be 
 possible to travel under the seat, as people do in 
 books. Then that notice on the edge of the racks 
 is in itself a challenge. They are not to be em- 
 ployed for heavy luggage ? Well and good. But 
 what constitutes heavy luggage? Does Archie? 
 
184 Days of Discovery 
 
 Let's try him. Those racks are a good deal 
 stronger than the Company makes out . And then 
 there are the stations, and Archie must be allowed 
 a place at the window to draw an engine, before 
 the train starts again, and Colin wants to have 
 some friendly badinage with his special chum, 
 the guard; and I must buy a newspaper for a 
 table-cloth — a penny is always allowed for that 
 — for lunch time is at hand. And there is always 
 the open question for debate as to "how quick 
 she is going." One must pause to listen to the 
 engine tugging on the way up Shap, and to 
 watch the fences fly past on the way down. Then 
 there are those bewildering telegraph wires which 
 keep rising and falling and flowing along all the 
 time, with a sort of twinkle at every post. Best 
 of all there is the secret interchange of messages 
 with the servants in the carriage behind. That is 
 magnificent. You write the message on a scrap 
 of paper and tie it firmly to a piece of string, and 
 then it is paid out into the whistling gale by slow 
 degrees until one feels a tug that indicates that it 
 has safely come to hand. It is not at all unlike 
 deep-sea fishing. 
 
 Then there is one point, and only one, where 
 you can catch a glimpse of the sea. That Is not 
 
In the Train 185 
 
 a thing to miss, nor the big viaduct near Lowgill, 
 nor the Border. That is a climax. It is customar} 
 to begin talking broad scotch at once when it is 
 passed. But the real train-game, of which I 
 know well we had by no means a monopoly, is a 
 sedentary, almost intellectual form of sport. It 
 filled a useful place in the latter part of the 
 journey, when your more explosive energies had 
 abated and you were at last content to sit still. 
 We had elaborated the simple outlines of this 
 time-honoured device for keeping children quiet 
 on a journey till we felt we had in a measure made 
 it our own. It was played by two teams of two 
 players each, stationed at the opposite windows, 
 thus occupying all four corners of the compart- 
 ment, and the winning side was that which 
 reached a hundred first. The umpire, who had 
 to act promptly at either side, hovered feverishly 
 between. I cannot exactly undertake to remem- 
 ber the code in detail, but I think the points 
 scored were something like the following : For a 
 cow, one — there were always lots of cows; for a 
 dog, three; for a wind-mill, ten; for a carriage 
 and pair, twelve. These were the ordinary 
 counters, the pawns in the game. But there were 
 also prizes of far greater value. Thus, for a black 
 
1 86 Days of Discovery 
 
 sheep, twenty ; for a white horse looking over a 
 gate, forty-five; for a donkey, fifty; and for a 
 flock of sheep on the road, Game! 
 
 And so the last hour slipped away, till we 
 found ourselves in the country that we knew. 
 At each fresh landmark there were shouts of keen 
 excitement at the windows such as even a white 
 horse looking over a gate had not evoked. And 
 then we found we were slowing down, the 
 last bridge resounded hollow beneath us, familiar 
 cries were heard, the train drew up, and the 
 Scotch guard with the great red beard came, key 
 In hand, to set us free. I think the shepherd with 
 a collie at his feet who took our place in the 
 empty carriages would hardly get so much out 
 of his journey as we had done. We thought he 
 looked rather bored and weary as he settled In 
 his corner, and I fear he did not understand as 
 we did the art of travel; for there Is plenty to do 
 In a train. 
 
XXVI 
 
 ABOUT BEING IN THE MIDDLE 
 
 I ONCE met one old gentleman who understood. 
 He lifted from me In a moment all that sense of 
 injustice, of harsh treatment at the hands of 
 Fate, which I had been harbouring in secret. 
 He left me with a memory which served to drive 
 it out in the time to come. He even elevated 
 my dreary Intermediate state to a special signifi- 
 cance, and gave It a new value In my eyes. For 
 it is, without question, something of a tragedy 
 of childhood — to be In the middle. 
 
 I know now, on looking back, that It was only 
 for a few months, when the two cliques on either 
 side hardened their hearts against me, that I 
 had any real grievance on this score. But the 
 peculiar tribulations of that period left their 
 sting behind, and I must have got Into the habit 
 whenever I found myself (from any cause) left 
 out in the cold, of blaming this sinister accident 
 
 187 
 
1 88 Days of Discovery 
 
 of my birth, until I had elevated it into a prime 
 misfortune. 
 
 The ''Big Ones" and the "Little Ones'' 
 each contrived somehow to fall into a distinct 
 group, and if there were any good things going 
 they were pretty sure, as it seemed to me, to get 
 hold of them between them. The whole family 
 was much too large a unit for most purposes. It 
 must be divided, but when the division was 
 made there was pretty sure to be a bit left over 
 in the middle — and I was the bit. To the Christ- 
 mas parties where one played Blind-Man's-Buff 
 and where there was a conjurer or private 
 theatricals went the Big Ones. To the Christmas 
 parties where one played Hunt-the-Slipper and 
 where there was a tree and large supplies of 
 sponge-cake fingers, went the Little Ones. But 
 there appeared to be few Christmas parties that 
 fitted my case. The Big Ones to a great extent 
 had their own interests and occupations, in which 
 I was too small and insignificant to take part. 
 The Little Ones resented my intrusion into their 
 own special games and secret delights, knowing 
 very well that I would consider them altogether 
 too silly for one of my years. In the first case my 
 role was that of a panting hanger-on, who could 
 
About Being in the Middle 189 
 
 never quite keep up and who ran much risk of 
 being sent about his business : in the second that 
 of a superior critic, always ready to tender advice 
 which was not wanted, and usually much better 
 out of the way. Of course even in that dark 
 winter I had my days — great days when I was 
 smiled on by my superiors in return for some 
 brilliant suggestion that they had seen fit to 
 adopt, when I myself became to all intents and 
 purposes a Big One, tasting rare joys of suprem- 
 acy. There were also days when, descending to 
 the lower scale, I was adopted for the time being 
 as leader and chief of the Little Ones. But for the 
 most part I was out of it. And the worst of It 
 was that a sort of alliance between Big and Little 
 was not altogether unknown. There were times 
 when the two groups were on the friendliest 
 terms, one simply exuding admiration, the other 
 showing a beautiful and most self-conscious con- 
 descension. They were so far apart as to be 
 mutually attractive to each other, but I was 
 much too like them both. Had the programme 
 of our upbringing been quite consistent and every 
 one of us passed in a steady rotation through each 
 successive phase It would not have been so bad. 
 But new ideas were sometimes adopted, generally 
 
190 Days of Discovery 
 
 after I had passed the stage to which they applied. 
 The Big Ones Vv^ere of course continually reaching 
 a new stage of some sort — a later bed-time, an 
 extension of bounds, a private sponge, school- 
 room tea. These privileges also fell to me in 
 due course, but somehow they had grown a little 
 stale by then. I should have had no cause of 
 complaint had those below me followed strictly 
 on the same lines. But variations would be 
 adopted. The statutory bed-time was put back 
 half an hour, for Instance, the statutory pocket- 
 money was advanced, an entirely new departure 
 was made In the Important matter of the cake 
 supply for nursery tea — after I had been drafted 
 to the schoolroom. There was no real Injustice 
 In these things. They were In themselves valu- 
 able amendments. But while the Big Ones were 
 already too far on to take much interest In them, 
 I knew well that I had only just missed them. 
 It was not fair! 
 
 Often would I brood upon the thing's that 
 were not fair, and more and more I came to 
 attribute them to my intermediate position. 
 On one such occasion, when two separate parties 
 had left me alone and desolate In the nursery, I 
 made a startling discovery, which emphatically 
 
About Being in the Middle 191 
 
 was not fair. I was the only one, If you came to 
 think of It, who never had any new clothes. My 
 little sister had in that particular the immense 
 weapon of her sex to defend her. But my small 
 brother was coming off nearly as well. For most 
 of my garments descended, in a more or less im- 
 paired condition, from those above and the trouble 
 was that by the time I had done with them they 
 were of no use whatever to anyone else. I even 
 went so far that night as to plan a special method 
 by which I might bring home to Archie the fact 
 that whoever had claim to new clothes he had 
 none. I would start taking such scrupulous care 
 of my garments that when I had grown out of 
 them they would still be fit for active service. 
 Then he would have to wear them. That plan, 
 like most of the others that I conceived to 
 mitigate my unfortunate position, came to 
 naught. There was no cure for It till the coming 
 of the old gentleman. And that was a most 
 extraordinary and epoch-making event. 
 
 The old gentleman was absolutely right in 
 every way. I looked back upon him afterwards 
 as one decorated with a halo of perfection. He 
 was the only Grown-up I had ever known In 
 whom I could not suggest Improvement. He came 
 
192 Days of Discovery 
 
 from Australia and he had a unique faculty for 
 understanding things. He o.Jy came once, and 
 after he had finished his visit to the drawing- 
 room, instead of going quietly out of the house, as 
 did other visitors, he dashed upstairs, three steps 
 at a time, and opened the door of the nursery. 
 He must have found it by instinct, as he had no 
 one to guide him. But he was quite equal to 
 that. In he came, sat down on the sofa and 
 joined at once in the conversation In the most 
 natural way. At the end of three-quarters of an 
 hour we had practically accepted him as one of 
 ourselves, and were even making use of him (for 
 he was very tall) to lift down sundry of our 
 belongings which, having been used as missiles 
 in the course of a bombardment of Alexandria, 
 had lodged on the top of the high cupboard out 
 of reach. But the astounding thing happened 
 at the moment of his departure — for he was 
 sorry he could not stay to tea. 
 
 *'Which Is the middle one?" he demanded 
 suddenly, as he took his hat. And when I had 
 claimed that position, "Will you come and see 
 me off at the station?" 
 
 We crept noiselessly past the drawing-room, 
 he with his finger on his lip (oh, he knew all 
 
About Being in the Middle 193 
 
 about It!) ; and he did not help me on with my 
 coat and pat my cap about and wonder if I 
 ought to have a muffler, as others were wont to 
 do. On the way to the station he discoursed at 
 length upon this one engrossing subject of being 
 in the middle. He understood. He revealed 
 the cheering fact that he had been in the middle 
 himself — and look how well he had turned out! 
 And had he had no fun? — not a bit. He was 
 only the middle of three, which was not, of course, 
 such an extreme case as mine. But his elder 
 brother had got the estate, and his younger sister 
 had married a baronet, and he was simply packed 
 off to a place called the Antipodes. So you see ! 
 But he went on to show that he had really had 
 the best of It in the long run. Middle Ones 
 always do, I was to buck up, he said, 
 and always remember that it was a general rule 
 in families that the best stuff was found in the 
 middle. "I know all about it," he concluded, 
 *'the Big Uns put on too much side, don't 
 they? And the Little Uns are so abominably 
 spoiled, eh?'* 
 
 And when he left me at the station he be- 
 stowed upon me a tip of such staggering dimen- 
 sions (gold!) that I went home in a car for fear 
 
194 Days of Discovery 
 
 of being robbed, and did not dare to show myself 
 In the nursery till I had discounted the extremes 
 of jealousy beforehand by laying out a liberal 
 part of it on chocolate-cream for the public 
 good. 
 
XXVII 
 
 SECRET HABITATIONS 
 
 The prehistoric man within us dies slowly. With 
 some of us he Is never wholly dead, but still may 
 make his pleading heard, calling us back to the 
 time when the Instincts of the savage played no 
 small part In guiding our activities. Or whence 
 comes this overmastering desire, that Is known 
 to every small boy, for a hidden house or home, 
 a camp or habitation that shall be all his own? 
 A little girl's idea of "playing house" Is some- 
 thing far different. It Is wholly conventional, 
 and consists of an elaborate Imitation In every 
 detail, as far as may be, of the genuine thing as 
 she knows it. She must mark off the rooms with 
 stones laid down in a laborious outline. She 
 must put In the bed (draped In a folded handker- 
 chief) , the table (of an upturned box) , and chairs 
 and sofas, each In its allotted place. She will 
 have the dishes ranged upon the dresser, poker 
 and tongs displayed upon the hearth, a basin on 
 
 195 
 
196 Days of Discovery 
 
 the wash-stand, and a pillow on the bed. She is 
 satisfied with the most feeble and inadequate 
 means to these ends so long as she need not 
 abandon them. Better a piece of broken slate 
 to represent the hearthrug than have no hearth- 
 rug on the floor. The whole amounts to a 
 slavish but most barbarous copy of her home. 
 It Is all very pretty, and she will spend priceless 
 hours In these surroundings, setting the table 
 with her little scraps of china, dusting her un- 
 responsive rooms or shaking out a hearthrug that 
 is hopelessly Inflexible. And she generally has a 
 keen desire to display her ingenuity and will 
 gladly ask you to take a hand in the game. 
 
 The boy also has his houses, but they are secret 
 and remote, and, far from being like his home, 
 they must present. If possible, abnormal and 
 eccentric features. He revels In a house on 
 wheels, a house underground or on the water, a 
 house of snow or a house of branches, a house In 
 the face of a cliff or a house in a tree — anything. 
 Indeed, but a house of stone built four-square 
 upon the ground, though even that might be 
 permissible if it could only be approached by 
 crawling tortuously. For It Is a point of no 
 small Importance that It should be diflicult — if 
 
Secret Habitations 197 
 
 possible, dangerous — to come at, and bereft of 
 any sort of common comfort in its mysterious 
 inside. 
 
 I see now the reason of the failure of our cabin- 
 in-the-woods, though at the time I could not 
 understand it. It was because some of these 
 prime conditions had been ruthlessly trans- 
 gressed. Archie, who had strong architectural 
 leanings, conceived the notion of building it, 
 and Authority smiled upon the undertaking. At 
 first one looked upon it with that robust contempt 
 which belonged to the enterprises of a younger 
 brother. But ere long one was induced to lend a 
 hand. And really he put it up with no little 
 skill, and, working manfully for most of the day- 
 light hours of a long holiday, completed, tarred 
 and locked it with a key. It was a neat, small 
 structure of rough planks, finely weatherproof, 
 fitted with a table, a cupboard, and a bed, and 
 pleasantly situated among the gorse bushes in 
 the corner of the Field Below. It was indeed all 
 that a house should be — and that was where it 
 failed. I am convinced that had it had some 
 outrageous feature, had it been set on piles in a 
 swamp, or even had it been less painfully sound 
 and capable all would have been well. But as 1 1 
 
198 Days of Discovery 
 
 was we had no heart in it. It languished from the 
 first, and ere a couple of years had passed it was 
 made over (as a hen-house) to Tom Coachman, 
 who tore it up and bore it home to his back 
 garden, where it may still be seen, filling a useful, 
 if degraded, office. 
 
 When first the rage for house-hunting set in, 
 any sort of cavity or burrow would serve the 
 purpose. We rejoiced in many queer retreats 
 where we found splendid isolation. There were 
 camps among the rhododendrons in the shrubbery. 
 (A "camp" was a sort of lairs, shut in by dense 
 branches and arched over by trees, where one 
 could peer out and catch a glimpse of passers-by 
 — all unseen and unsuspected.) There was the 
 stokehole beside the melon-house, a retreat of mos 
 grateful memory, where you would shut down 
 the lid above your head and lie upon heaped 
 coke before the glowing fire, and the footsteps 
 of your hereditary enemies — Callers — might even 
 pass — it has happened — over your crouching head 
 and they be none the wiser. There was a glorious 
 little den in the quarry on The Green-Hill-Far- 
 Away. 
 
 I had lost all zest for these pursuits. Camps 
 and stokeholes are naught to me now, but I still 
 
Secret Habitations 199 
 
 look back with lively Interest and regret upon 
 our house In the old holm oak. That was by far 
 our happiest inspiration. The others had their 
 day and were deserted one by one, but the tree- 
 house met a tragic end while it still stood high 
 in our affections. Had it not been for a miser- 
 able scheme that was set on foot for enlarging 
 the tennis lawn it might well have lasted out our 
 time. For the old holm oak with its precious 
 burden had to go. 
 
 The house was poised at a height where no 
 Grown-up would ever dare to climb, and so 
 slender were the branches among which it rested 
 that it swung with thrilling motion in the wind. 
 But it was firmly fixed with stout ropes and stays 
 to every available limb, and built Into its position 
 like a nest. The floor was made of an old door 
 discarded from a famous pottlng-shed, and when 
 once it had been placed — a risky and laborious 
 process — the superstructure was soon nailed on. 
 Walls and roof were made of a variety of collect- 
 ed materials — canvas, felt and carpet — and the 
 whole front was In the form of a flap which 
 folded up. All things are a matter of proportion, 
 and it Is probable that its dizzy altitude was not 
 more than thirty feet from the ground. But it 
 
200 Days of Discovery 
 
 was almost completely hidden by surrounding 
 leaves. 
 
 And If I am asked what we did In the many 
 hours we spent In it, I find myself completely at 
 a loss. I fancy that to be In It at all was in Itself 
 a sufficient occupation. There were books 
 carried up to it that we never opened, pencils 
 and paint-boxes that were never used. Curiously, 
 one generally went up alone, or If there was more 
 than one conversation often languished. One 
 really had no time to spare for that. To be there, 
 swaying gently with the branches, looking out 
 upon a bewildering world, of green, watching 
 the birds that came and went, or peering down 
 at the little patch-work scraps of the garden, of 
 flower-beds, gravel, or smooth-shaven lawn that 
 were picked out by the sun between the leaves; 
 it was enough. Best of all to be there In a heavy 
 shower of rain, In the very heart of the pattering 
 musketry of the myriad drops. I know the 
 charm and fascination of It all had taken so com- 
 plete possession of me that I would rise day after 
 day at six In the morning that I might have two 
 extra hours before others were awake to sit and 
 dream far up among the branches. 
 
 We never built another house when the old 
 
Secret Habitations 201 
 
 tree had to go; soon, indeed, we had arrived at 
 an age when tree-houses are of no more avail. 
 But I doubt if in any of the many camping, 
 caravaning, sleeping-out enterprises of my later 
 life I have ever quite caught again that which 
 was lost on that most fateful day. I still dream of 
 a house in a tree that I shall build myself some 
 day, deep in a forest and poised above a stream, 
 and of hours that I shall spend there in the 
 Spring, alone, well pleased with this old occupa- 
 tion of doing nothing with a pure content. 
 
XXVIII 
 
 SCORING.OFF^ 
 
 It was at one time a favourite matter of discussion 
 in the nursery whether it was correct to say "I 
 scored him off," or "I score off him." There 
 was a strong party in favour of the former on 
 the ground of emphasis, while the latter was sup- 
 ported by the more pedantic, who had begun to 
 take an interest in grammar. Fortunately the 
 point did not often arise, for there could be no 
 question about the construction of the phrase 
 in its most common form when it was used as a 
 signal of victory and a paean of triumph in the 
 exultant shout of "Scored off !" 
 
 This was one of the leading practices of those 
 distant days, for there was simply no end to the 
 methods in which one might be scored off. It 
 was less a state of continuous warfare, than a 
 game of give-and-take, a matter of reprisals, of 
 the balancing of accounts, of knowing oneself to 
 be "one up." It did not entail much ill-feeling, 
 
 202 
 
Scoring Off 203 
 
 and I am sure that the distress of the Scored-off 
 was never by any means commensurate with the 
 deep joy of the Scorer. But you were bound to 
 take a hand In the game if you would not lose 
 your position among your fellows and sink into 
 insignificance and contempt. For to be scored 
 off — as was Cousin Herbert — without resentment 
 and without any attempt to retaliate was to 
 stamp yourself as no sportsman. It was exactly 
 equivalent to the — miserable practice of giving up 
 a game before it was finished because you were 
 losing; and even Those in Authority, perceiving 
 its iniquity, had made a special regulation against 
 that. And the beauty of it was that this charming 
 practice permeated every department of our lives. 
 For if Archie by bagging the common hair- 
 brush and thereafter chucking it behind the chest 
 of drawers was able to get down in the morning 
 in time for prayers, while you were late and were 
 reprimanded therefor, it was a score-off — though 
 rather a poor one. If he got the top of the cream 
 for his porridge by reaching the breakfast table 
 first it was a solid and substantial score-off for 
 you. If you could make him late for school by 
 hiding his boots you felt, of course, that you 
 had got level and could start again on even terms. 
 
204 Days of Discovery 
 
 These examples belong to the simplest and most 
 straightforward type, along with the Apple Pie 
 Bed and the Booby Trap. Working on the same 
 lines, one would secrete unpleasant substances in 
 the victim's pocket or remove his chair when he 
 was on the point of sitting down. These were all 
 useful in their way, but none of them could be 
 regarded as first class. A really powerful score- 
 off, and one which brought with it a full sense 
 of satisfaction, must be more subtle. It must be 
 a triumph of wit. This came chiefly into opera- 
 tion in the successful prognostication of events, 
 the discovery of secrets or the vindication of 
 an opinion. For there was nothing in which one 
 showed more vigour and tenacity than in forming 
 an opinion and sticking to it. If I had once said 
 that Aunt Mary was coming to tea on Friday it 
 was useless trying to argue me out of the state- 
 ment or to convince me that Thursday was the 
 day. There was probably much violent conten- 
 tion as to who was in the right, but all attempt 
 at persuasion was wholly barren. And when at 
 last the old lady turned up on Wednesday it only 
 remained to decide which of the two competitors 
 could consider himself the more completely 
 scored off. 
 
Scoring Off 205 
 
 To have discovered some new and startling 
 fact was in itself an open challenge which would 
 be taken up, often against great odds, almost 
 automatically. If I (having perceived among the 
 parcels on the hall table one of peculiar shape 
 and skilfully put two and two together) had sur 
 mised and announced that Archie was going to 
 get a cricket-bat for a birthday present on the 
 morrow, some one would be quite certain to 
 deny it without going through the formality of 
 asking the grounds of my conclusion. The debate 
 would begin with an unprofitable interchange on 
 the basis of "He is" and "He isn't," but before 
 long a diversion would be caused by some one 
 suggesting an alternative, say a pair of stilts (then 
 much in vogue). Afer that there was not much 
 more to be said, though that did not prevent us 
 from saying much; it only remained to be seen 
 which of us was scored off. But when the time 
 came our sympathetic Interest in Archie's acquisi- 
 tion would be quite submerged in our eagerness 
 to learn the result of the dispute. 
 
 But the most tremendous and effective triumphs 
 were those in which an important piece of In- 
 formation was being hoarded up and used as a 
 weapon by Its possessor, and was discovered by a 
 
2o6 Days of Discovery 
 
 competitor and published In spite of him. After 
 persuasion, pressure, threats and all failed, and 
 he still refused to tell the name of the new 
 governess (which he had overheard) , the formula 
 was "I don't care" (which was palpably untrue), 
 *'ril find out In spite of you!" And If one did 
 find out and made public proclamation of the 
 intelligence at nursery tea, with what splendid 
 force did one drive home one's victory In the 
 brief and withering peroration "Scored off!" 
 
 And that reminds me that the most elaborate 
 and overwhelming score-off was perpetrated by 
 the new governess, who rose by reason of It to 
 staggering heights in our estimation. For we 
 recognized that this was a level of the art far 
 beyond our own clumsy efforts, to be kept before 
 us for weeks to come as a glowing example. She 
 had told Sidney and Colin (who were to be her 
 pupils) that the following morning they would 
 come into the schoolroom between one and two, 
 without knowing it. It was an evening of great 
 excitement. Was it true? If so, how could she 
 bring it about? Was it thought-reading or 
 somnambulism? Or a horrid thing called Hypno- 
 tism that Colin said he had heard about? . . . 
 
 Nothing remarkable happened during the 
 
Scoring Off 207 
 
 night, when we all slept as usual. But that 
 proved nothing. For they were to do it 'Vith- 
 out knowing it." At 9 a.m. Miss Gardner arrived 
 and found us waiting in force in the schoolroom 
 to demand an explanation. She took us to the 
 door and pointed out where she had writen the 
 figure I upon one side of it and 2 upon the other. 
 It dawned upon us. Sidney and Colin, without 
 knowing it, had come in between one and two! 
 And that was a score-off ! 
 
XXIX 
 
 A STRANGE TONGUE 
 
 The new language was much the most sweeping 
 and adventurous of our many literary experi- 
 ments. Long before that we had dealt largely 
 In codes and secret cyphers. There was that 
 system of hieroglyphics which was employed for 
 sending messages by string and pulley from second 
 storey windows to the garden below. It was 
 altogether successful in its main object — that Is 
 to say, it must have baffled the investigations of 
 the enemy, had any of the messages fallen Into 
 his hands. (The fact that they never did, and 
 that indeed there was no enemy need not detain 
 us). But it also had an annoying faculty for 
 baffling the painful researches of the receiving 
 correspondent himself. At least he must take 
 his message away to the summer-house, get out 
 his key and put his whole mind into it if he would 
 succeed In making it out. Every letter of the 
 208 
 
A Strange Tongue 209 
 
 alphabet had a sign of its own. The thing was 
 built up by a daring combination of the face of a 
 clock with sundry diagrams out of the first book 
 of Euclid, which — not having as yet been in- 
 cluded in the dreary category of "lessons" — 
 appealed to us directly by their native charm. 
 But we were always in difficulties. The drafts- 
 manship was defective : the number of segments 
 of the clock which could be mutually distinguished 
 was not very great, and one triangle, unless it be 
 most carefully transcribed, is pretty like another. 
 Messages became more and more terse and laconic 
 and the time came when it was not considered 
 quite sporting to send more than a single word. 
 The difficulty of expressing oneself adequately 
 in a single word again called forth an extensive 
 code, in which one syllable represented a whole 
 sentence. After that we were fairly happy for 
 a time — though there was necessarily some monot 
 ony in our communications. But when some 
 one pointed out that there was now no need 
 for the cypher, as the code word itself conveyed 
 a hidden meaning, we felt that the whole system 
 had broken down under the weight of its own 
 complexity and Instantly abandoned It. Indeed 
 
2IO Days of Discovery 
 
 there was a very strong revulsion of feeling. The 
 very suggestion of a secret code was regarded 
 with contempt. And when Archie was found, a 
 whole week later, trying to concoct a new one 
 he was very promptly suppressed. One certainly 
 had, in those old days, the faculty for breaking 
 off short and starting again. There were no loose 
 ends and things did not drag on out of their due 
 season. When we had done with a thing, we had 
 done with it. We were not given to raking up 
 the past. 
 
 Then, of course, we published a newspaper. It 
 began as a Daily, but the trouble about a daily 
 newspaper, as we soon found, is simply that it 
 appears every day. So we altered that . It then 
 had a brief and rather distinguished career as a 
 Weekly, until, under pressure of an active period 
 of frost and snow — when our energies were fully 
 occupied — it hastily announced its Intention of 
 coming out in future on the first of every 
 month. We had hoped to keep it on Its legs for 
 a time as a quarterly, but it was not long before 
 we were referring to It as the "Annual." Even 
 then we were hampered by a sense of that 
 terrible and machine-like regularity which at- 
 taches to a periodical; and the last number of 
 
A Strange Tongue 21 1 
 
 all bore the inscription "Published whenever the 
 Editor feels inclined" — a state of affairs which 
 never again occurred. 
 
 The death of the paper was hastened by the 
 fact that by that time we were all becoming en- 
 grossed in authorship, as opposed to journalism. 
 But a greater project awaited us. So far we had 
 merely been aping the achievements of other 
 men. Anyone could publish a rotten newspaper 
 or write a silly book, or make up a beastly code, 
 we told each other. We felt the need of a new 
 field that belonged to us alone. This whole 
 question of language and intercommunication 
 was, if you came to think of it, horribly stale. 
 Why should we be condemned to converse in 
 the same terms as Grown-up People? Could we 
 not among ourselves find a better way, which 
 should shut us off from the generality of man- 
 kind? The idea was comforting in itself and also 
 it pointed to possible distinction. Already we 
 could hear outsiders in tramcars, remarking to 
 one another when we entered. "Oh, yes, those 
 are the children that don't talk English." The 
 only question was — how was it to be done? A 
 day was set apart, as an experiment, on which 
 we would communicate only by signs. That was 
 
212 Days of Discovery 
 
 a strange, sad, unsatisfactory day. It was as if a 
 shadow had descended upon us, and it was small 
 comfort to be told in the evening by Those in 
 Authority that it had been quite a pleasure to 
 have us about the house and that it was a long 
 time since we had been so good. And the system 
 broke down hopelessly. Archie lost his temper 
 altogether when his efforts to communicate the 
 fact that he had seen tadpoles in the pit were 
 construed by me Into a request for the loan of 
 my knife. So that was no good. Very well, 
 only one course remained. We must make a 
 new language. 
 
 We held a very serious and Immensely Impor- 
 tant meeting on the question in the stable loft. We 
 agreed that we had been forced Into It, that there 
 was no other way. We admitted that at first 
 sight It appeared a big undertaking — we did not 
 wish to underrate It. We were prepared for the 
 necessary sacrifices of time and thought and 
 energy; and we had no doubt whatever that we 
 could carry It through. We should get pretty 
 sick of It perhaps, still there must be no slackness, 
 until the work was completed. We estimated, 
 not without awe, that It would take up nine half- 
 holidays. 
 
A Strange Tongue 213 
 
 That afternoon we converted the stable loft 
 Into an office, provided one pencil each, and pen 
 and ink for the fair copy, a large roll of drawer 
 paper for rough manuscript, and a penny exercise 
 book for the completed dictionary. And so we 
 set to work. Every word was to have a new 
 formation : It was to be a word that had not been 
 used before: there were to be no tenses, con- 
 jugations, numbers, genders, nor any parts of 
 speech. It was a perfectly straightforward pro- 
 position. We were simply to enter up all the 
 words that we were ever likely to use which began 
 with A, find equivalents for them, and then on 
 to B, and so on. 
 
 It went swimmingly the first day. Down they 
 went — ^Apple, Animal, Airgun and Aberdeen. 
 We thought of no less than twenty-seven, and 
 being then satisfied that we had exhausted the 
 subject, we took it In turns to allot new words to 
 them. It was wonderful to observe how quickly 
 we got on — BiM, Spick, Sport. . . . "You must 
 remember that it will take you fellows some time 
 to learn this language," remarked the scribe, as 
 he closed the book for the day. "But at any 
 rate we've finished A." 
 
 The real trouble was that there wr^e omissions. 
 
214 Days of Discovery 
 
 At the second meeting, which should have been 
 devoted to B, it was pointed out that we had so 
 far no verbs, and we had to go back upon the old 
 ground, which was disappointing. However, we 
 made some headway. At the third sitting the 
 list for both the first letters of the alphabet was 
 found to be terribly defective and, after a very 
 lively session, we began to lighten the ship. 
 "We'll have to chuck out adjectives," said the 
 scribe. "We can easily get on without adjectives." 
 Archie developed a perverse ingenuity in thinking 
 up words that had been forgotten, even then. 
 We had to be continually harking back. The 
 meetings became disorderly, and the attendance 
 fell off. But it was not so much the magnitude 
 of the task that killed the language, it was the 
 sheer lack of new words of which to build it up. 
 Before we had come to the end of C, it was quite 
 impossible to invent one that had not done 
 service before, without running to four or five 
 syllables. We would sit round, furiously racking 
 unresponsive brains That wretched English 
 language seemed to have bagged them all. Then 
 it came to light that we had already used the 
 same word — Pape, I think It was — for Autumn, 
 Book, and Baby, and when Sidney, the scribe, 
 
A Strange Tongue 215 
 
 heroic to the last, decided to distinguish them by 
 accents, the whole enterprise came down with a 
 crash. 
 
 That was the end of It, and we were never 
 given to raking up the past. 
 
XXX 
 
 WHAT TO BE 
 
 We were not allowed to talk In bed. And really, 
 on looking back, It Is very difficult at first to Im- 
 agine when we did find time for any conversation, 
 In the era of perpetual motion. Every day was 
 a sort of headlong scramble, from the moment 
 when one tumbled — or was flung — out of bed 
 till the light was taken away in the evening and 
 we were left to compose ourselves for sleep. 
 Seldom did one sit still long enough to talk, 
 except at meals when one was otherwise occupied. 
 There was always too much to be seen from the 
 top of a tram or out of a railway carriage window. 
 One was In far too great a hurry on the way to 
 school and too actively exuberant. In the joy of 
 one's recovered freedom, on the way back. And 
 yet there Is no doubt that a good deal of talking 
 was wedged in somewhere. There were moments 
 of reflection after all, contemplative moods, 
 occasions for discussion, argument and debate., 
 
 216 
 
What to Be 217 
 
 Perhaps It would be a November evening In the 
 last half-hour before tea, when old John Gardener 
 had heaped up a great smouldering fire of fallen 
 leaves which filled the whole garden with their 
 sweet, earthy, choking smoke, redolent of autumn, 
 of Intimate, domestic things, of the time of year 
 for gathering In about the hearth. There on an 
 upturned flowerpot beside the glowing fire or in 
 a wheelbarrow (there Is no more delightful 
 lounge than a wheelbarrow) one might be con- 
 tent to sit munching an apple and talk awhile. 
 Or perhaps It would be on a still summer after- 
 noon. In the dazzling sunshine among the tumbled 
 hay, sprawling with a cap drawn over one's eyes, 
 that one found a fit occasion for debate. At 
 such times there was one subject above all that 
 gripped our attention, that ran on perennially 
 with unflagging interest, that was never out of 
 place — What we would like to he. 
 
 Growing up was still a remote contingency. 
 We looked forward to that strange, shadowy 
 future state, like an undiscovered land beyond 
 the mountains, not with any eagerness or desire 
 to enter In. I think we regarded It rather as a 
 necessary misfortune and our speculations (as to 
 the part that we should play) chiefly as a means 
 
2i8 Days of Discovery 
 
 of making the best of it, when the time should 
 come. Tremendous vistas were opened up, but 
 the whole thing was like a fairy tale, remote and 
 quite unreal. One could not definitely imagine 
 oneself grown-up any more than one could imagine 
 oneself a horse or a dog. And thus there was a 
 very close affinity between the two variants of 
 the discussion. What will you be when you grow 
 up? and What would you like to be here and 
 now? 
 
 We soon came to a deadlock over the second 
 question, however, simply because, generally 
 speaking, everyone wanted to be a Squirrel and 
 it was difficult to decide who had bagged it first. 
 If anyone could really lay claim to that Idea 
 and succeed in reserving it for himself. It was 
 sometimes possible to take some interest in other 
 less attractive roles. Birds were generally pop- 
 ular, and Archie (whose ideas were never nice) 
 often declared, in the teeth of opposition, that he 
 would like to be a Rat. To do him justice he had 
 no special hankering after living the daily life of 
 the rat. What he wanted to discover, and estab- 
 lish beyond dispute, just what you came to when 
 you followed up the little tunnel that ran into 
 the bank from the hole beneath the pantry 
 
What to Be 219 
 
 window, and whether It had any connection with 
 the manhole In the yard. The only person he 
 had ever seen who used that route was a rat. 
 My little sister on one occasion struck a new note. 
 She had been gazing dreamily Into the heavens 
 and when the question was put to her she an- 
 nounced, without a trace of hesitation or delay, 
 that she would like to be a cloud. But we were 
 not at all sure about that. It sounded rather as 
 if it might have come out of a book. Sooner or 
 later the thought of the swaying branches and 
 the depths of greenery, of clever, dainty patter- 
 ings along dizzy tracks and wild leaps from tree 
 to tree would drive out all other imaginings. 
 And so we got back to the squirrel. It came to 
 this. If we couldn't be a squirrel we would stay 
 just as we were. 
 
 On the other question — of our future state 
 and profession — there was far more diversity of 
 opinion. I sometimes wonder if we ever for a 
 moment expected to carry out the intentions 
 that we so clearly expressed. It is probable that 
 one never anticipated becoming a Plumber any 
 more seriously than one anticipated becoming a 
 Squirrel. It was a pure exercise of the imagina- 
 tion in either case. What one wanted to do was 
 
220 Days of Discovery 
 
 to picture oneself playing a part and living a life. 
 We were immensely obsessed with this vital 
 question. It seemed to us of the very first im- 
 portance. If you could not or would not say 
 what you meant to be, you were wilfully con- 
 cealing an important aspect of yourself from your 
 fellows. If you didn't know what you meant to be 
 you were simply contemptible. It was almost as 
 bad as not knowing how old you were. Thus when 
 a stranger was introduced to our circle — which of 
 course we resented — after the two preliminary 
 questions of his name and age there followed at 
 once, simply to complete the introduction, the 
 demand: "What are you going to be when you 
 grow up?" His future treatment depended in 
 no small extent upon his reply to that. 
 
 Of course we were continually revising our 
 intentions and adopting new professions. It 
 would have been no fun if we had remained con- 
 stant to an Ideal. And there were times when one 
 simply could not make up one's mind. When I 
 had finished with the plumber (having seen the 
 home, in a back street, of my friend Mr. Pearce 
 and found It not at all to my taste) I was for 
 some weeks torn In two between the rival claims 
 of a couple of professions, or perhaps I should say 
 
What to Be 221 
 
 callings — ^both of which struck me as being hugely 
 desirable. I was determined to be either a Mis- 
 sionary or a Smuggler. My eldest brother 
 wanted to be a Lamp-lighter, for in those days 
 there was a poetic figure which flitted by every 
 evening about dusk with a long twinkling pole 
 over his shoulder. I would have been a lamp- 
 lighter myself I think had there been no other 
 in the family. 
 
 We had strong leanings towards the rarer and 
 more unusual class of labour. Bill-stickers, 
 Sandwich-men, Hawkers all had their run of 
 popularity. I think we rather prided ourselves 
 on not wanting to be Sailors, because that seemed 
 to be expected of us. There was once an uncle 
 who had asked the vital question and gone on 
 with a disgraceful levity to add ^'A Sailor, I 
 suppose? Run away to sea, eh?" Colin was 
 the most consistent. He was going to work a 
 magic lantern and nothing would shake him from 
 his purpose. 
 
 Well do I remember the day when Sidney, who 
 had begun to go to school — real boarding school 
 — came home for the holidays with an entirely 
 new answer to the riddle. We felt at once that 
 it was the beginning of the end. For when on 
 
222 Days of Discovery 
 
 the first evening he was asked the familiar ques- 
 tion, he told us, in the most off-hand manner, 
 that he was going to be a Cotton Broker (he had 
 gone away only three months before a confirmed 
 Lion Tamer) and the announcement was most 
 coldly received. It was clear that he had some- 
 how lost the proper atmosphere of the game. 
 That could hardly be a pure leap of the imagina- 
 tion: there was a taint of deliberate intention 
 about it. . . . Was it possible that he would 
 really grow up to be a Cotton Broker? 
 I have only to add that he did. 
 
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