lays himself the most popular being "The Tragedy of King John"--and
he was very clever at manipulating the innumerable strings by which
the movements of his puppets were regulated. One winter, when the snow
lay thick upon the lawn, he traced upon it a maze of such hopeless
intricacy as almost to put its famous rival at Hampton Court in the
shade.

[Illustration: Toy Station in garden at Croft.]

When he was twelve years old his father sent him to school at
Richmond, under Mr. Tate, a worthy son of that well-known Dr. Tate who
had made Richmond School so famous.

I am able to give his earliest impressions of school-life in his own
words, for one of his first letters home has been fortunately
preserved. It is dated August 5th, and is addressed to his two eldest
sisters. A boy who has _ten_ brothers and sisters can scarcely be
expected to write separate letters to each of them.

My dear Fanny and Memy,--I hope you are all getting on well,
as also the sweet twins, the boys I think that I like the
best, are Harry Austin, and all the Tates of which there are
7 besides a little girl who came down to dinner the first
day, but not since, and I also like Edmund Tremlet, and
William and Edward Swire, Tremlet is a sharp little fellow
about 7 years old, the youngest in the school, I also like
Kemp and Mawley. The rest of the boys that I know are
Bertram, Harry and Dick Wilson, and two Robinsons, I will
tell you all about them when I return. The boys have played
two tricks upon me which were these--they first proposed to
play at "King of the Cobblers" and asked if I would be king,
to which I agreed. Then they made me sit down and sat (on
the ground) in a circle round me, and told me to say "Go to
work" which I said, and they immediately began kicking me
and knocking me on all sides. The next game they proposed
was "Peter, the red lion," and they made a mark on a
tombstone (for we were playing in the churchyard) and one of
the boys walked with his eyes shut, holding out his finger,
trying to touch the mark; then a little boy came forward to
lead the rest and led a good many very near the mark; at
last it was my turn; they told me to shut my eyes well, and
the next minute I had my finger in the mouth of one of the
boys, who had stood (I believe) before the tombstone with
his mouth open. For 2 nights I slept alone, and for the res