the
table on which I was standing. As soon as the flicker of my candle
fell on the ball I distinctly remembered putting it there. I argued
that it was the only place in the house that I could reach, and that my
brother couldn't, and consequently the only place in the house that was
really safe. The fact that the ball had remained there, untouched, all
through the cricket season abundantly demonstrated the justice of my
conclusion. My jubilation was so exuberant that it drove all thought
of the peg-top out of my mind. There is such a thing as the expulsive
power of an old affection as well as the expulsive power of a new
affection. My delight over my new-found cricket ball entirely
dispelled my grief over my missing peg-top. Indeed, I am not sure to
this day whether I ever saw that peg-top again. I may have
inadvertently deposited it on a shelf that my brother could reach; but
after the lapse of so many years I will endeavour to harbour no dark
suspicions. In any case, it does not matter. What is a paltry peg-top
compared with a half-guinea cricket ball? I had sought, and I had
found. I had not found what I had sought, nor had I sought what I had
found. Perhaps if I had continued my search for the peg-top with the
enthusiasm and assiduity with which I had lugged the kitchen table up
to the corner cupboard, I should have found it. Perhaps if I had
searched for the cricket ball with the same zest that marked my quest
of the peg-top, I should have found it. But that is not my point. My
point is the point with which I set out. I do not believe that a case
of a really unsuccessful search has ever been recorded. He that
seeketh, findeth, depend upon it.

The days of the peg-top and the cricket ball seem a long way behind me
now, and I am glad that the fate of the queer old corner cupboard has
been mercifully hidden from my eyes. But, by sea and land, the
principle that I first discovered when I stood on tiptoe on the kitchen
table has followed me all down the years. The secret that I learned
that day has acted like a talisman, and has turned every spot that I
have visited into an enchanted ground. Even my study table is not
immune from its magic spell. A more prosaic spectacle never met the
eye. The desk, the pigeon-holes, the drawers, and the piles of papers
might have to do with a foundry or a fish-market, so very unromantic do
they appear. And yet, what times I have whenever I manage to lose
someth