ty of the occasion, but he
was eager and fully determined to purchase as many stamps as could be
secured for the generous prize of money bestowed upon him by a lady
who had observed his progress in the study of Nature--beetles, moths,
tadpoles and the like--and had noted his ever-growing passion for
postage-stamps.

London he looked upon as one gigantic repository of stamps. I spoke to
him of Trafalgar Square and the Nelson Column and the Landseer Lions.
He replied by informing me that there was a certain issue of Mauritius
which was valued at L1,200. "If," he said, "I could get that some day
I shouldn't want to collect any more."

"It seems," I said, "a lot of money to pay for a small piece of
paper."

"Yes," he agreed, "it is; but perhaps I could get it cheap in some old
shop which didn't know much about it."

I then tried to divert his attention to the prospect of having
luncheon with me at the Rhadamanthus Club, but he begged me not to
interrupt him, as he was endeavouring to calculate how many years it
would take him to get together the sum if he could manage to save
two-pence a week out of his pocket-money. After a short mental
struggle, however, he gave it up and banished the blue Mauritius, or
whatever it is, from his ambitions and his conversation.

Before we started Francesca addressed a few earnest words to me about
the proper care of a boy in London.

"Be sure," she said, "to see that he keeps his hands clean. I should
hate to think that he was wandering about Piccadilly and Pall Mall
with dirty hands."

"He'll have to wander," I said, "with such hands as Nature provides
for him. No little boy can ever keep his hands clean anywhere for more
than half a minute at a stretch."

"But you might give him an occasional wash, you know."

"I will do everything," I said, "that may become a father, short of
carrying about a wash-hand basin and a jug of water and a piece of
soap and a towel through Piccadilly and Pall Mall."

"And his hair," she said,--"you'll not let it got too untidy, will
you?"

"I'll brush it when I can," I said; "but you must remember that a
little boy without a Catherine-wheel of hair on the back of his head
is only fit for a museum. I must insist on his keeping his
Catherine-wheel substantially intact."

Well, at last we got off in the train on our adventure, I with a
morning paper, and Frederick deep in a stamp-catalogue, from which he
occasionally brought forth things old and n