of the sea-shore any
mysterious message to his individual soul from the spirit world. He
was full of fun, full of the joy of life, and as "keen as mustard" on
adventures of any kind. His fun, however, was of the innocent order.
He was not like Cruel Frederick in _Struwwelpeter_, who (the little
beast!) delighted in tearing the wings from flies and hurling
brickbats at starving cats. Baden-Powell would have kicked Master
Frederick rather severely if he had caught him at any such mean
business. No, his fun took quite another form. He was fond of what you
call "playing the fool," singing comic songs, learning to play tunes
on every odd musical instrument he could find, and delighting his
brothers by "taking off" people of their acquaintance. B.-P., you must
know, is a first-rate actor, and in his boyhood it was one of his
chief delights to write plays for himself and his brothers to act.
Some of these plays were moderately clever, but all of them contained
a screamingly funny part for the low comedian of the company--our
friend Ste himself.

Another of his amusements at this time was sketching. He got into the
habit of holding his pencil or paint-brush in the left hand, and his
watchful mother was troubled in her mind as to the wisdom of allowing
a possible Botticelli to play pranks with his art. One day Ruskin
called when this doubt was in her mind, and to him the question was
propounded. Without a moment's reflection he counselled the mother to
let the boy draw in whatsoever manner he listed, and together they
went to find the young artist at his work. In the play-room they
discovered one brother reading hard at astronomy, and Ste with a
penny box of water-colours painting for dear life--with his left hand.

"Now I'll show you how to paint a picture," said Ruskin, and with a
piece of paper on the top of his hat and B.-P.'s penny box of paints
at his side he set to work, taking a little china vase for a model.
Both the vase and the picture are now in the drawing-room of Mrs.
Baden-Powell's London house. The result of Ruskin's advice was that
B.-P. continued to draw with his left hand, and now in making sketches
he finds no difficulty in drawing with his left hand and shading in at
the same time with his right.

There is an incident of his childhood which I must not forget to
record. At a dinner-party at the Baden-Powells', when Ste was not yet
three years old, the guests being all learned and distinguished men,
such