school, and must have had nearly one hundred boys training for Eton and
Harrow and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, mostly the sons of
the aristocracy and the leading families. Some of our most eminent men
were trained there. Some of the younger boys on the fourth form were
allowed out with the usher on the Wednesday afternoons in the summer
time, from two till six, to wander in the fields and lanes to gather wild
flowers and to receive instruction in botany. I became acquainted with
them at the tuck shop in Queen Street, kept by an old crippled shoemaker,
where we used to gamble for sweets by an apparatus called a "doley." You
dropped a marble down a spiral column on to a tray at the bottom with a
lot of indents for the marble to lodge in, all numbered, and the highest
number took the prize.

There were two ushers to the fourth form who took duty in turns. One a
stout, sombre-looking man, whose sole enjoyment appeared to be to sit out
on the riverside of the Thames and smoke, drink beer, and read. I think
I became rather useful to the boys as I could always find them bait, and
knew where the best fishing was to be had, and would get them white mice.
The other usher was a very much younger man, and better liked, as he
would bring the boys to certain places and leave us to ourselves, with
strict instructions to meet him at six. Usually the place of meeting was
the Monster Tavern, at the end of the Willow Walk. We very soon found
out that he was courting a young lady at a tavern in the Vauxhall Bridge
Road. I recollect one Wednesday before Palm Sunday we had been left at
the ferry to go over to Battersea fields for the afternoon. We wandered
about amusing ourselves till we got to Latchmere, at the bottom of Pig
Hill. They were then building the South Western Railway, and the land
was all open so we wandered along by the side of the stream, about six
feet wide, that bounded the long gardens of the large houses in the
Wandsworth Road. It had willow trees on the banks on each side, and we
began to gather palm, when we came to one tree on the opposite bank that
had some exceptionally fine bits, but out of our reach. So we tied our
handkerchiefs together, placed a large stone in the end and threw them as
a lasso over the end of the branch and drew it to us. Four or five of us
pulled it over and held it while the others were to gather. I was at the
end pulling with all my strength, when all at once I fou