198 Later Years 



VII 



father. Also I had a great fondness — I have a 

 weakness for it still — for filling the fire-grates with 

 nice, clean, white willow shavings, with just a twinkle 

 of gold shavings on the top, — an innocent, if not 

 aesthetic practice, you will think, — but it was really 

 one that gave a field of action on which we two met in 

 conflict. He was a great smoker, and, moreover, reck- 

 less as to where he threw the matches. He always 

 said I hid the matches and he never had one, but it 

 was otherwise ; he had them, and he usually threw 

 them, if there was a grate handy, into it. ' Conclusions 

 passed their careers.' Those matches — never blown 

 out, mark you — in conjunction with my willow shavings 

 produced conflagrations. My father, if any inferior 

 member of the family entered the room, was observed 

 to be absorbed in study, or slumber, to a marked 

 degree ; and, needless to say, no observations were 

 made on the domestic tragedy. If my mother 

 happened to go in, he would say, in deeply injured 

 tones, ' Why do you let that child put that silly 

 stuff into the fireplace ? ' My mother would say, ' It 

 amuses her, and you ought to be more careful with 

 your matches.' ' Well,' he would say, in a deeply 

 resigned tone, ' she will get the house burnt down 

 some day,' just for all the world as if I, plus willow 

 shavings, spelt spontaneous combustion, and he had 

 had nothing to do with it whatsoever. Infinite were 

 the points of collision between him and me, very 

 largely from our similarity in taste. I well remember 

 his coming home once with a tin of gunpowder 



