fairly good men--I mean on the
direct line--but when we get on the side branches there is not a monarch
upon earth who does not roost on that huge family tree. Not once, nor
twice, but thrice did the Plantagenets intermarry with us, the Dukes
of Brittany courted our alliance, and the Percies of Northumberland
intertwined themselves with our whole illustrious record. So in my
boyhood she would expound the matter, with hearthbrush in one hand and
a glove full of cinders in the other, while I would sit swinging my
knickerbockered legs, swelling with pride until my waistcoat was as
tight as a sausage skin, as I contemplated the gulf which separated me
from all other little boys who swang their legs upon tables. To this
day if I chance to do anything of which she strongly approves, the dear
heart can say no more than that I am a thorough Packenham; while if I
fall away from the straight path, she says with a sigh that there are
points in which I take after the Munros.

She is broad-minded and intensely practical in her ordinary moods,
though open to attacks of romance. I can recollect her coming to see me
at a junction through which my train passed, with a six months' absence
on either side of the incident. We had five minutes' conversation, my
head out of the carriage window. "Wear flannel next your skin, my dear
boy, and never believe in eternal punishment," was her last item of
advice as we rolled out of the station. Then to finish her portrait
I need not tell you, who have seen her, that she is young-looking and
comely to be the mother of about thirty-five feet of humanity. She
was in the railway carriage and I on the platform the other day. "Your
husband had better get in or we'll go without him," said the guard. As
we went off, the mother was fumbling furiously in her pocket, and I know
that she was looking for a shilling.

Ah! what a gossip I have been! And all to lead up to the one sentence
that I could not have stayed at home this six months if it had not been
for the company and the sympathy of my mother.

Well, now I want to tell you about the scrape that I got myself into. I
suppose that I ought to pull a long face over it, but for the life of me
I can't help laughing. I have you almost up to date in my history now,
for what I am going to tell you happened only last week. I must mention
no names here even to you; for the curse of Ernulphus, which includes
eight and forty minor imprecations, be upon the head of