endence by selling us boys that sweet cake
dotted with currants, some of which were swollen out to an enormous
size, and lay in little pits on the top. These currants we used to dig
out as _bonnes bouches_ from the dark soft brown, but only to find them
transformed into little bubbles of cindery lava, which crunched between
the teeth.

And so it was that, as I sat sailing along at the mouth of that swift,
yellow, muddy Chinese river, munching the sweet cakey bread Ching had
brought on board, and gazing from time to time at the geese we had shot
and had no means of cooking, memory carried me back to Mother Crissell's
shop, and that rather bun-faced old lady, who always wore a blue cotton
gown covered with blue spots and of no particular shape, for the amiable
old woman never seemed to have any waist. There was the inside of her
place, and the old teapot on the chimney-piece, in which she deposited
her money and whence she drew forth change.

And then, in a moment, I seemed to be back in the great playground; then
away on to the common, where we hunted for lizards amongst the furze,
and got more pricks than reptiles. I saw, too, the big old
horse-chestnuts round by the great square pond where you could never
catch any fish, but always tried for them on account of the character it
had of holding monsters, especially eels as big and round as your arm.
I never knew any one catch a fish in that pond, but we did a deal of
anticipation there, and watched the dragon-flies flit to and fro, and
heard the rustle of they transparent wings. Splendid ones they were.
First of all, there came early in the summer the thin-bodied ones, some
of a steely-blue, some dark with clear wings, and with them those with
the wings clouded with dark patches. Then came the large, short,
flat-bodied, pointed-tailed fellows, some blue, some olive-green. Late
in the season, affecting the damp spots of the common among the furze
bushes more than the pond, came the largest long-bodied flies, which
hawked to and fro over the same ground, and played havoc among their
prey.

You could hear the school-bell from there--the big one in the turret on
the top of the great square brick mansion; and in imagination I saw that
pond, and the dragon-flies, lizards, and furze, the shady finger-leaved
chestnuts, and even heard that bell, while the sweet cakey bread lasted;
and then I was back in the Chinese boat on the Chinese river, for Ching
leaned over me with