so, all things considered, I felt it was
time for me to make a fresh move.

"'I had some difficulty in getting away. "Toady" was always asking for
me, and they tried to keep me with him: he seemed to lie easier when I
was there. I succeeded at length, however, and, once outside the door, I
put sufficient distance between myself and the house to ensure my not
being captured, for I knew "Toady" so long as he lived would never cease
hoping to get me back.

"'Where to go, I did not know. Two or three homes were offered me, but
none of them quite suited me. At one place, where I put up for a day,
just to see how I liked it, there was a dog; and at another, which would
otherwise have done admirably, they kept a baby. Whatever you do, never
stop at a house where they keep a baby. If a child pulls your tail or
ties a paper bag round your head, you can give it one for itself and
nobody blames you. "Well, serve you right," they say to the yelling
brat, "you shouldn't tease the poor thing." But if you resent a baby's
holding you by the throat and trying to gouge out your eye with a wooden
ladle, you are called a spiteful beast, and "shoo'd" all round the
garden. If people keep babies, they don't keep me; that's my rule.

"'After sampling some three or four families, I finally fixed upon a
banker. Offers more advantageous from a worldly point of view were open
to me. I could have gone to a public-house, where the victuals were
simply unlimited, and where the back door was left open all night. But
about the banker's (he was also a churchwarden, and his wife never smiled
at anything less than a joke by the bishop) there was an atmosphere of
solid respectability that I felt would be comforting to my nature. My
dear child, you will come across cynics who will sneer at respectability:
don't you listen to them. Respectability is its own reward--and a very
real and practical reward. It may not bring you dainty dishes and soft
beds, but it brings you something better and more lasting. It brings you
the consciousness that you are living the right life, that you are doing
the right thing, that, so far as earthly ingenuity can fix it, you are
going to the right place, and that other folks ain't. Don't you ever let
any one set you against respectability. It's the most satisfying thing I
know of in this world--and about the cheapest.

"'I was nearly three years with this family, and was sorry when I had to
go. I should ne