learned to speak better French than
he did English, for his father enjoyed far better society on the
Continent than he did in London. In the same way, by sojourning in the
land, he learned to make himself understood in German; and two months
at Rome gave him a fair Italian. It must be admitted that he was as
bad at spelling in all three of those languages as he was in his own.
Again, his geography was hardly of the ornamental kind; he was entirely
and happily ignorant of the whereabouts of Leeds and Crim Tartary; it
is doubtful whether the Balearic Isles, which most boys of the Western
World could point you out on a map, were even a name to him. But by
the time he was ten he could so deal with continental or English
Bradshaw that in five or six minutes he could tell you the quickest or
the most comfortable way of reaching any town in which a
self-respecting person would care to find himself, and his knowledge of
steamer-routes and the Great American railways was no less sound.

Besides these accomplishments he was acquiring a wide knowledge of the
world. By his eleventh birthday, though inexperienced in Lestrygons
and Lotos-eaters, he had seen the cities of more men than that way-worn
wanderer Ulysses at the end of his voyages, and he had no mean
understanding of their disposition. Besides, as the years went on, Sir
Tancred's debts increased. To live the really strenuous London life,
you need a great deal of money; and though Fortune, so cruel to him in
love, was kind at Bridge, her kindness was not continuous; and
sometimes the ungracious importunities of his creditors drove him into
retirement in the country. During these times of exile Tinker was, for
the most part, his only companion, save for brief visits from Lord
Crosland; and since Sir Tancred made a point of talking to him as his
equal in age and experience, he gained from these times of close
intimacy a yet wider knowledge of the world. These retirements never
lasted long, not long enough indeed for Tinker, who was always happy
enough in the country. Sir Tancred after a while grew impatient for
the distractions of which he had acquired so deep-rooted a habit.
Moreover, in the country, out of a well-filled country house or
shooting-box, he might at any time fall into the old, sorrowful
brooding on his lost happiness.

The most uncommon part of Tinker's education was the careful
cultivation of his faculty of observation. Sir Tancred himself had a
nat