SON? _Do_ you know how to ride--or _do you generally fall off_?"

Explain to him elaborately that I am rather more at home on horseback
than on my legs. He winks, as if he didn't quite believe me. I
can't go on, as it's certainly _infra dig._ to be praising one's
accomplishments, especially to a chit like this.

"We buried NERO here," the boy says, pointing to a damp mound. "He
was our Newfoundland dog, and the gardener dropped a beam on him, and
killed him as dead as JULIUS CAESAR. Oh, Mr. JOYNSON, _when_ did JULIUS
CAESAR die?"

Happily my presence of mind does not desert me. I reply, severely,--

"What! Don't you know your Roman History better than that?"

"No," he answers--"do you?" Then a sudden thought strikes him. "Oh,
I'll ask Miss MYRTLE" (Miss MYRTLE is the Governess)--"_she_'ll be
sure to know. _She_ isn't a muff."

_Query_--What is the best line to take with a remark like that?
Before I decide the point, HERBIE rushes out into the garden, and
is immediately sent spinning into a cucumber-frame by his kind elder
brother, who then disappears into the house.

Yells from HERBIE. Go in and send the Governess to him. Relief from
children for about ten minutes.

_At Breakfast_.--Mother cross. Seems to think that _I_ ought to have
prevented ERNIE from mutilating HERBIE. HERBIE appears with head
bandaged, still sobbing. French again, thank Heaven!--so children
silent. Never felt the advantage of foreign languages till now.

Mamma, with a courage worthy of a better cause, asks me, "What time
lessons will begin?" I reply, evasively, "that I shall be in the
library, and that I will ring for _ERNEST_ (I lay stress on the word
ERNEST, as excluding the two others) when I am ready for him."

I do, after a good preliminary smoke. HERBIE and JACK present
themselves at the same time. I send them off to the Governess, and
lock the door; Governess sends them back to me; result is, that they
play about outside library all morning, so that we (ERNEST and I) can
hardly hear ourselves speak.

Put ERNIE through his paces. Ask him what he knows. Process (I
fear) incidentally reveals to him what _I_ know. Hear him at lunch
explaining to HERBIE (with whom he has made friends again) that I am
"not bad at sums, but a shocking duffer at Latin." Pretend not to hear
the remark.

_Afternoon_.--Find the three boys, _and two girls_, all
waiting--apparently--to go out for a country walk with me!

What! Two-and-two! Never!

"But-