BOYHOOD. 



2/ 



One little event during this year has fixed itself very 

 firmly in my mind, and I hope that it has done so from my 

 conscience having been afterwards sorely troubled by it ; it 

 is curious as showing that apparently I was interested at this 

 early age in the variability of plants ! I told another little 

 boy (I believe it was Leighton, who afterwards became a well- 

 known lichenologist and botanist), that I could produce vari- 

 ously coloured polyanthuses and primroses by watering them 

 with certain coloured fluids, which was of course a monstrous 

 fable, and had never been tried by me. I may here also con- 

 fess that as a little boy I was much given to inventing delib- 

 erate falsehoods, and this was always done for the sake of 

 causing excitement. For instance, I once gathered much 

 valuable fruit from my father's trees and hid it in the shrub- 

 bery, and then ran in breathless haste to spread the news 

 that I had discovered a hoard of stolen fruit. 



I must have been a very simple little fellow when I first 

 went to the school. A boy of the name of Garnett took me 

 into a cake shop one day, and bought some cakes for which 

 he did not pay, as the shopman trusted him. When we came 

 out I asked him why he did not pay for them, and he instant- 

 ly answered, "Why, do you not know that my uncle left 

 a great sum of money to the town on condition that every 

 tradesman should give whatever was wanted without pay- 

 ment to any one who wore his old hat and moved [it] in a 

 particular manner ? " and he then showed me how it was 

 moved. He then went into another shop where he was 

 trusted, and asked for some small article, moving his hat in 

 the proper manner, and of course obtained it without pay- 

 ment. When we came out he said, "Now if you like to go 

 by yourself into that cake-shop (how well I remember its 

 exact position) I will lend you my hat, and you can get what- 

 ever you like if you move the hat on your head properly." 

 I gladly accepted the generous offer, and went in and asked 

 for some cakes, moved the old hat and was walking out of 

 the shop, when the shopman made a rush at me, so I dropped 

 the cakes and ran for dear life, and was astonished by 



1896 



LIBRARY 



