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during his Eton holidays. This room was kept just as he had left it, and I found the walls specially interesting. Nailed upon them by himself were the many colours he had won at school, his Sixpenny, his Lower Club, his Fives Choice and several others. I was afterwards questioned incredulously at Eton about these decorations and asked whether any printed lists accompanied them. They did not, and the implication was that he had won no such honours and must have obtained these by pilfering. Even if so they still demonstrate his attachment to the venerable Foundation that lies under the shadow of Windsor.
She showed me a bundle of his school letters pathetically confined in a faded ribbon. To know oneself is notoriously difficult and perhaps the youthful James failed to do so. One gathers from these little outpourings that the reasons he got no prizes were (1) Mi' tutor's deplorable spite against him, (2) that he was devoting so much futile endeavour to correcting the morals of his fellows. He brings one terrible indictment against the Head. Several of the boys smoked (we are speaking of far back days), and James, in an uplifting of the spirit, to purge the house, felt it his duty to carry the names to the Head, who first swiped them, and then, telling them who had peached, concluded with the extraordinary words "Don't kick him in my presence." Some hours later James returned to the Head, pale and limping, to say finely, "I forgive you, sir," and, on being asked why, replied "Because I feel, sir, that in the ordinary course of nature you cannot be long spared to us," whereupon the
