, also, got licked. And The Boy never could make
his mother understand why he was silly and careless enough to cut his
under-lip by knocking it against Bill Rice's knuckles. Bill subsequently
apologized by saying that he did not mean to kick the top into the
fountain. He merely meant to kick the top. And it was all made up.

[Illustration: THE BOY ALWAYS CLIMBED OVER]

The Boy did not fight much. His nose was too long. It seemed that he
could not reach the end of it with his fists when he fought; and that
the other fellows could always reach it with theirs, no matter how
far out, or how scientifically, his left arm was extended. It was "One,
two, three--and recover"--on The Boy's nose! The Boy was a good runner.
His legs were the only part of his anatomy which seemed to him as long
as his nose. And his legs saved his nose in many a fierce encounter.

The Boy first had daily admission to St. John's Park after the family
moved to Hubert Street, when The Boy was about ten years old; and for
half a decade or more it was his happy hunting-ground--when he was not
kept in school! It was a particularly pleasant place in the autumn and
winter months; for he could then gather "smoking-beans" and
horse-chestnuts; and he could roam at will all over the grounds without
any hateful warning to "Keep Off the Grass."

The old gardener, generally a savage defender of the place, who had no
sense of humor as it was exhibited in boy nature, sometimes let the boys
rake the dead leaves into great heaps and make bonfires of them, if the
wind happened to be in the right direction. And then what larks! The
bonfire was a house on fire, and the great garden-roller, a very heavy
affair, was "Engine No. 42," with which the boys ran to put the fire
out. They all shouted as loudly and as unnecessarily as real firemen
did, in those days; the foreman gave his orders through a real trumpet,
and one boy had a real fireman's hat with "Engine No. 42" on it. He was
chief engineer, but he did not run with the machine: not because he was
chief engineer, but because while in active motion he could not keep his
hat on. It was his father's hat, and its extraordinary weight was
considerably increased by the wads of newspaper packed in the lining to
make it fit. The chief engineer held the position for life on the
strength of the hat, which he would not lend to anybody else. The rest
of the officers of the company were elected, _viva voce_, every time
there wa