nny's deathbed, and the exciting leaps from the immeasurably long
kitchen table into Amelia's print-clad arms, are things which stand
out rather more clearly in my recollection than many of the events of,
say, twenty years later.

II

How is it that my earliest recollections should centre about folk no
nearer or dearer to me than domestic servants? I know that my mother
died within three months of my birth. There had to be, and was,
another woman in my life before Amelia; but I have no memories of her.
She was an aunt, an unmarried sister of my mother's; but I believe my
father quarrelled with her before I began to 'take notice' very much;
and then came Amelia.

The large underground kitchen really was fairly big. I had a look at
it no more than a dozen years ago. The house, too, was and is a not
unpleasing one, situated within a stone's throw of Russell Square,
Bloomsbury. Its spaces are ample, its fittings solidly good, and its
area less subterranean than many. Near by is a select livery stable
and mews of sub-rural aspect, with Virginia creeper climbing over a
horse's head in stucco. Amelia shared with me a night nursery and a
nursery-living room in this house, the latter overlooking the mews,
through the curving iron rails of a tiny balcony. Below us my father
occupied a small bedroom and a large sitting-room, the latter being
the 'first floor front.'

At this time, and indeed during all the period of my first English
memories--say, eight years--my father was engaged in journalistic
work. I know now that he had been called to the bar, a member of
Lincoln's Inn; but I do not know that he ever had a brief. He gave
some years, I believe, to coaching and tutoring. I remember seeing,
later in my boyhood, a tattered yellow prospectus which showed that he
once delivered certain lectures on such subjects as 'Mediaeval English
Poetry.' In my time I gather that my father called no man master or
employer, but was rather the slave of a number of autocrats in Fleet
Street. 'The office,' as between Amelia and myself, may have meant all
Fleet Street. But my impression now is that it meant the building then
occupied by the ----. (Here figures the name of one of London's oldest
morning newspapers.--Ed.) And, it may be, the ---- Club; for I have
reason to believe that my father did much of his work at his club. I
have even talked there with one member at least who recollected this
fact.

But the memory of my father as he w