fault of the oven, you know it was, Luke."

"My dear," said my father, "I only meant it as a joke."

"I don't like that sort of joke," said my mother; "it isn't nice of you,
Luke."

I don't think, to be candid, my mother liked much any joke that was
against herself. Indeed, when I come to think of it, I have never met a
woman who did, nor man, either.

There had soon grown up a comradeship between my father and myself for
he was the youngest thing I had met with as yet. Sometimes my mother
seemed very young, and later I met boys and girls nearer to my own age
in years; but they grew, while my father remained always the same. The
hair about his temples was turning grey, and when you looked close you
saw many crow's feet and lines, especially about the mouth. But his eyes
were the eyes of a boy, his laugh the laugh of a boy, and his heart the
heart of a boy. So we were very close to each other.

In a narrow strip of ground we called our garden we would play a cricket
of our own, encompassed about by many novel rules, rendered necessary by
the locality. For instance, all hitting to leg was forbidden, as tending
to endanger neighbouring windows, while hitting to off was likewise not
to be encouraged, as causing a temporary adjournment of the game, while
batter and bowler went through the house and out into the street to
recover the ball from some predatory crowd of urchins to whom it had
evidently appeared as a gift direct from Heaven. Sometimes rising very
early we would walk across the marshes to bathe in a small creek that
led down to the river, but this was muddy work, necessitating much
washing of legs on the return home. And on rare days we would, taking
the train to Hackney and walking to the bridge, row up the river Lea,
perhaps as far as Ponder's End.

But these sports being hedged around with difficulties, more commonly
for recreation we would take long walks. There were pleasant nooks even
in the neighbourhood of Plaistow marshes in those days. Here and there
a graceful elm still clung to the troubled soil. Surrounded on all sides
by hideousness, picturesque inns still remained hidden within green
walls where, if you were careful not to pry too curiously, you might
sit and sip your glass of beer beneath the oak and dream yourself where
reeking chimneys and mean streets were not. During such walks my father
would talk to me as he would talk to my mother, telling me all his wild,
hopeful plans, discussing w