heart-breaking practice. Yet we preferred them. If it did nothing
else, the Genevan Hospital, by Plymouth Dock, taught us to suit
ourselves to the world as we found it.

I do not remember that we were unhappy or nursed any sense of injury,
except over the porridge for breakfast. The Rev. Mr. Scougall, our
pastor, had founded the hospital some twenty years before with the
money subscribed by certain Calvinistic ladies among whom he
ministered, and under the patronage of a Port Admiral of like belief,
then occupying Admiralty House. His purpose (to which we had not the
smallest objection) was to rescue us small jetsam and save us from
many dreadful Christian heresies, more especially those of Rome.
But he came from the north of Britain and argued (I suppose) that
what porridge had done for him in childhood it might well do for us--
a conclusion against which our poor little southern stomachs
rebelled. It oppressed me worse than any, for since the discovery of
my sleep-walking habit my supper (of plain bread and water) had been
docked, so that I came ravenous to breakfast and yet could not eat.

Nevertheless, I do not think we were unhappy. Perhaps we were too
young, and at any rate we had nothing with which to contrast our lot.
Across the roadway outside lay blue water, and of this and of roving
ships and boats and free passers-by glimpses came to us through the
wicket when Mr. George, the porter (we always addressed him as "Mr."
and supposed him to resemble the King in features), admitted a
visitor, or the laundress, or the butcher's boy. And sometimes we
broke off a game to watch the topmasts of a vessel gliding by
silently, above the wall's coping. But if at any time the world
called to us, we took second thoughts, remembering our clothes.

We wore, I dare say, the most infernal costume ever devised by man--a
tightish snuff-coloured jacket with diminutive tails, an orange
waistcoat, snuff-coloured breeches, grey-blue worsted stockings, and
square-toed shoes with iron toe-plates. Add a flat-topped cap with
an immense leathern brim; add Genevan neck-bands; add, last of all, a
leathern badge with "G.F.H." (Genevan Foundling Hospital) depending
from the left breast-button; and you may imagine with what diffidence
we took our rare walks abroad. The dock-boys, of course, greeted us
with cries of "Yellow Hammer!" The butcher-boy had once even dared
to fling that taunt at us within our own yard; and we left him