as Buckle and Whewell, Thackeray was handing Mrs. Baden-Powell
into dinner when he noticed that one of the little children was
following behind. This was the future scout of the British Army, and
the young gentleman, according to his wont, was just scrambling into a
chair when Thackeray, fumbling in his pocket, produced a new
shilling, and said in his caressing voice, "There, little one, you
shall have this shilling if you are good and run away." Ste quietly
looked up at his mother, and not until she told him that he might go
up to the nursery did he shift his ground. But he carried that
shilling with him, and now it is one of his most treasured
possessions.

While he was doing lessons at home Baden-Powell gave evidence of his
bent. He was fond of geography, and few things pleased him more than
the order to draw a map. His maps, by the way, were always drawn with
his left hand, and were astonishingly neat and accurate. Then in his
spare hours, with scissors and paper, he would cut out striking
resemblances of the most noted animals in the Zoo, and
these--elephants and tigers, monkeys and bears--were "hung" by his
admiring brothers with due honour on a large looking-glass in the
schoolroom, there to amuse the juvenile friends of the family. He had
the knack, too, of closely imitating the various sounds made by
animals and birds, and one of his infant jokes was to steal behind a
person's chair and suddenly break forth "with conspuent doodle-doo."
And, again, when he was a little older, living at Rosenheim, I.W.,
there was surely the future defender of Mafeking in the little chap in
brown Holland on the sands of Bonchurch digging scientific trenches
with wooden spade, and demonstrating to his governess the
impregnability of his sand fortress. With his sister and brother,
little Ste was once out with this governess on a country ramble near
Tunbridge Wells, when the governess discovered that she had walked
farther than she intended and was in strange country. Ste was elated.
But enquiry elicited the information that the party was not lost, and
that they could return home by a shorter route; then was Baden-Powell
miserable and cast down. He protested that he wanted the party to get
lost so that he could find the way home for them.

[Illustration: B.-P. reflecting on the After-deck of the _Pearl_]

A favourite holiday haunt was Tunbridge Wells, where Ste's grandfather
owned a spacious and a fair demesne. Here, with miles of