g for granted and let me see through it into realities--realities
I had indeed known about before but never realised. Each of these
experiences left me with a sense of shock, with all the values in
my life perplexingly altered, attempting readjustment. One of these
disturbing and illuminating events was that I was robbed of a new
pocket-knife and the other that I fell in love. It was altogether
surprising to me to be robbed. You see, as an only child I had always
been fairly well looked after and protected, and the result was an
amazing confidence in the practical goodness of the people one met in
the world. I knew there were robbers in the world, just as I knew there
were tigers; that I was ever likely to meet robber or tiger face to face
seemed equally impossible.

The knife as I remember it was a particularly jolly one with all sorts
of instruments in it, tweezers and a thing for getting a stone out
of the hoof of a horse, and a corkscrew; it had cost me a carefully
accumulated half-crown, and amounted indeed to a new experience in
knives. I had had it for two or three days, and then one afternoon I
dropped it through a hole in my pocket on a footpath crossing a field
between Penge and Anerley. I heard it fall in the way one does without
at the time appreciating what had happened, then, later, before I got
home, when my hand wandered into my pocket to embrace the still dear
new possession I found it gone, and instantly that memory of something
hitting the ground sprang up into consciousness. I went back and
commenced a search. Almost immediately I was accosted by the leader of a
little gang of four or five extremely dirty and ragged boys of assorted
sizes and slouching carriage who were coming from the Anerley direction.

"Lost anythink, Matey?" said he.

I explained.

"'E's dropped 'is knife," said my interlocutor, and joined in the
search.

"What sort of 'andle was it, Matey?" said a small white-faced sniffing
boy in a big bowler hat.

I supplied the information. His sharp little face scrutinised the ground
about us.

"GOT it," he said, and pounced.

"Give it 'ere," said the big boy hoarsely, and secured it.

I walked towards him serenely confident that he would hand it over to
me, and that all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

"No bloomin' fear!" he said, regarding me obliquely. "Oo said it was
your knife?"

Remarkable doubts assailed me. "Of course it's my knife," I said. The
ot