48 " MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE ! " 



we had a very good time, though I was not quite old 

 enough to appreciate it. 



Is my educational process in the slightest degree interest- 

 ing to a living soul but myself ? I doubt it, but to show 

 what manner of boy I was I don't mind stating that the 

 first adventure in getting me taught away from home 

 was at the day school of a gaunt pedagogue called 

 Nicholson, who had his schoolroom closely adjacent to 

 Mr Rhodes's house. He was a man with a bald, bright 

 head, and very sharp-looking eyes. He used to sit at 

 a desk with a cane of average size, and one very long one, 

 with which he could hit boys in all parts of the room 

 without moving from his place. He never menaced me 

 in this way and I was located at a table by myself on the 

 left hand of him, but I was a boy such as, at present, 

 I should despise, for I was ridiculously nervous and used 

 to burst into tears if he even looked at me. This method 

 of teaching was found to be hopeless, and Mr Nicholson 

 was engaged to come in the afternoons to Kilvington and 

 do what he could in the way of private teaching : even 

 so, I was an impossible subject until he had led off with 

 a game of draughts or something of the sort, and gradually 

 slid into education. It seems absurd, but it is true, and 

 so I record the fact. I can see Mr Nicholson, even now, 

 walking home after such a lesson, carrying a brace of 

 partridges, which were the frequent perquisites of my 

 tuition. He taught me the origin of the word whisky, 

 and a hairdresser, who used to cut my hair, gave early 

 object lessons in the use of rum. 



A little rum, he used to say, was the best possible 

 stimulant for the scalp, and being provided with rum 

 he would pour it into the full palm of one hand then pass 

 that hand with an ecstatic suck past his mouth and apply 

 the relics of rum to my head. This he would do two or 

 three times, to his own very great satisfaction. 



These seem to be mere trifles, but inasmuch as they 

 are also truths of a long past day, they may perhaps 

 possess some little interest even now. 



