our right the Baby Walk, which is
so full of perambulators that you could cross from side to side stepping
on babies, but the nurses won't let you do it. From this walk a passage
called Bunting's Thumb, because it is that length, leads into Picnic
Street, where there are real kettles, and chestnut-blossom falls into
your mug as you are drinking. Quite common children picnic here also,
and the blossom falls into their mugs just the same.

Next comes St. Govor's Well, which was full of water when Malcolm the
Bold fell into it. He was his mother's favourite, and he let her put her
arm round his neck in public because she was a widow, but he was also
partial to adventures and liked to play with a chimney-sweep who had
killed a good many bears. The sweep's name was Sooty, and one day when
they were playing near the well, Malcolm fell in and would have been
drowned had not Sooty dived in and rescued him, and the water had washed
Sooty clean and he now stood revealed as Malcolm's long-lost father. So
Malcolm would not let his mother put her arm round his neck any more.

Between the well and the Round Pond are the cricket-pitches, and
frequently the choosing of sides exhausts so much time that there is
scarcely any cricket. Everybody wants to bat first, and as soon as he
is out he bowls unless you are the better wrestler, and while you are
wrestling with him the fielders have scattered to play at something
else. The Gardens are noted for two kinds of cricket: boy cricket, which
is real cricket with a bat, and girl cricket, which is with a racquet
and the governess. Girls can't really play cricket, and when you
are watching their futile efforts you make funny sounds at them.
Nevertheless, there was a very disagreeable incident one day when some
forward girls challenged David's team, and a disturbing creature called
Angela Clare sent down so many yorkers that--However, instead of telling
you the result of that regrettable match I shall pass on hurriedly to
the Round Pond, which is the wheel that keeps all the Gardens going.

It is round because it is in the very middle of the Gardens, and when
you are come to it you never want to go any farther. You can't be good
all the time at the Round Pond, however much you try. You can be good in
the Broad Walk all the time, but not at the Round Pond, and the reason
is that you forget, and, when you remember, you are so wet that you may
as well be wetter. There are men who sail boats on the