ou are jesting, Mr.
Trapp?"

"Jesting, ma'am?"

"You do not really employ that barbarous method of acceleration?"

"Meaning furze-bushes? Why, no, ma'am; not often. Look ye here,
young sir," he continued, dismissing (as of no account) this subject,
so interesting to me; "you was wide awake, anyway, when you came
down, and that you can't deny."

"Harry," persisted Miss Plinlimmon, "has not been used to harsh
treatment. You will like his manners: he is a very gentlemanly boy."

Mr. Trapp stared at her, then at me, then slowly around the room.
"Gentlemanly?" he echoed at length, in a wondering way, under his
breath.

"I have used my best endeavours. Yes, though I say it to his face,
you will really--if careful to appeal to his better instincts--find
him one of Nature's gentlemen."

Mr. Trapp broke into a grin of relief; almost you could say that he
heaved a sigh.

"Oh, that's all?" said he. "Why, Lord love ye, ma'am, I've been
called that myself before now!"

So to Mr. Trapp I was bound, early next week, before the magistrates
sitting in petty sessional division, to serve him and to receive
from him proper sustenance and clothing until the age of twenty-one.
And I (as nearly as could be guessed, for I had no birthday) had
barely turned ten. Mr. Scougall arrived in time to pilot me through
these formalities and hand me over to Mr. Trapp: but at a parting
interview, throughout which we both wept copiously, Miss Plinlimmon
gave me for souvenir a small Testament with this inscription on the
fly-leaf:

H. REVEL,
_from his affectionate friend, A. Plinlimmon_.

_O happy, happy days, when childhood's cares
Were soon forgotten!
But now, when dear ones all around are still the same,
Where shall we be in ten years' time?_

"They were my own composition," she explained. Mr. George bade me a
gloomier farewell. "You might come to some good," he said
contemplatively; "and then again you mightn't. I ain't what they
call a _pessimist_, but I thinks poorly of most things. It's safer."

Mr. Trapp was exceedingly jocose as he conveyed me home to his house
beside the Barbican, Plymouth; stopping on the way before every
building of exceptional height and asking me quizzically how I would
propose to set about climbing it. At the time, in the soreness of my
heart, I resented this heavy pleasantry, and to be sure, after the
tenth repetition or so, the diver