en sat on and dried at the fire; and with lime
juice against scurvy, extracted from the peel of his oranges and a little
economised juice. He made a North Pole one morning from the whole of his
bedclothes except the bolster, and reached it in a birch-bark canoe (in
private life the fender), after a terrible encounter with a polar bear
fashioned from the bolster and four skittles dressed up in "Da's"
nightgown. After that, his father, seeking to steady his imagination,
brought him Ivanboe, Bevis, a book about King Arthur, and Tom Brown's
Schooldays. He read the first, and for three days built, defended and
stormed Front de Boeuf's castle, taking every part in the piece except
those of Rebecca and Rowena; with piercing cries of: "En avant, de
Bracy!" and similar utterances. After reading the book about King Arthur
he became almost exclusively Sir Lamorac de Galis, because, though there
was very little about him, he preferred his name to that of any other
knight; and he rode his old rocking-horse to death, armed with a long
bamboo. Bevis he found tame; besides, it required woods and animals, of
which he had none in his nursery, except his two cats, Fitz and Puck
Forsyte, who permitted no liberties. For Tom Brown he was as yet too
young. There was relief in the house when, after the fourth week, he was
permitted to go down and out.

The month being March the trees were exceptionally like the masts of
ships, and for little Jon that was a wonderful Spring, extremely hard on
his knees, suits, and the patience of "Da," who had the washing and
reparation of his clothes. Every morning the moment his breakfast was
over, he could be viewed by his mother and father, whose windows looked
out that way, coming from the study, crossing the terrace, climbing the
old oak tree, his face resolute and his hair bright. He began the day
thus because there was not time to go far afield before his lessons. The
old tree's variety never staled; it had mainmast, foremast, top-gallant
mast, and he could always come down by the halyards--or ropes of the
swing. After his lessons, completed by eleven, he would go to the
kitchen for a thin piece of cheese, a biscuit and two French
plums--provision enough for a jolly-boat at least--and eat it in some
imaginative way; then, armed to the teeth with gun, pistols, and sword,
he would begin the serious climbing of the morning, encountering by the
way innumerable slavers, Indians, pirates, leopards, a