me
to go up to him and stroke him. Then I left the Indian bull and
explored this extraordinary domain. It was full of unkempt trees,
including two fine mulberries, and surrounded by a very high wall.
Soon I came across an object which, at first, seemed a little mass of
black and white oats moving along, but I presently discovered it to
be a hedgehog. It was so tame that it did not curl up as I approached
it, but allowed me, though with some show of nervousness, to stroke
its pretty little black snout. As I walked about the garden, I found
it was populated with several kinds of animals such as are never seen
except in menageries or in the Zoological Gardens. Wombats,
kangaroos, and the like, formed a kind of happy family.

My love of animals led me to linger in the garden. When I returned to
the house I found D'Arcy in the green dining-room, where we talked,
and he read aloud some verses to me. We then went to the studio. He
said,

'No doubt you are surprised at my menagerie. Every man has one side
of his character where the child remains. I have a love of animals
which, I suppose, I may call a passion. The kind of amusement they
can afford me is like none other. It is the self-consciousness of men
and women that makes them, in a general way, intensely unamusing. I
turn from them to the unconscious brutes, and often get a world of
enjoyment. To watch a kitten or a puppy play, or the funny antics of
a parrot or a cockatoo, or the wise movements of a wombat, will keep
me for hours from being bored.'

'And children,' I said--'do you like children?'

'Yes, so long as they remain like the young animals--until they
become self-conscious, I mean, and that is very soon. Then their
charm goes. Has it ever occurred to you how fascinating a beautiful
young girl would be if she were as unconscious as a young animal?
What makes you sigh?'

My thoughts had flown to Winifred breakfasting with her 'Prince of
the Mist' on Snowdon. And I said to myself, 'How he would have been
fascinated by a sight like that!'

My experience of men at that time was so slight that the opinion I
then formed of D'Arcy as a talker was not of much account. But since
then I have seen very much of men, and I find that I was right in the
view I then took of his conversational powers. When his spirits were
at their highest he was without an equal as a wit, without an equal
as a humourist. He had more than even Cyril Aylwin's quickness of
repartee, and it