We were always supplied with good "key-books," so that we
should be able to identify our specimens, and also to search for
others more intelligently. One value of my own specialty was that for
the moths it demanded going out in the night, and the thrills of out
of doors in the beautiful summer evenings, when others were "fugging"
in the house or had gone to bed, used actually to make me dance
around on the grass. The dark lantern, the sugaring of the tree stems
with intoxicating potions, and the subsequent excitement of searching
for specimens, fascinated me utterly. Our breeding from the egg,
through the caterpillar stage, taught us many things without our
knowing that we were learning.

One of our holidays was memorable, because as soon as our parents left
we invited my friend and two sisters as well to come and stay with us.
They came, fully expecting that mother had asked them, but were good
enough sports to stay when they found it was only us two boys. They
greatly added to the enjoyment of the days, and if they had not been
such inveterate home letter-writers--a habit of which we were very
contemptuous--it would have saved us boys much good-humoured teasing
afterwards, for the matron would have been mum and no one the wiser.

CHAPTER III

EARLY WORK IN LONDON

In 1883 my father became anxious to give up teaching boys and to
confine himself more exclusively to the work of a clergyman. With this
in view he contemplated moving to London where he had been offered the
chaplaincy of the huge London Hospital. I remember his talking it over
with me, and then asking if I had any idea what I wanted to do in
life. It came to me as a new conundrum. It had never occurred to me to
look forward to a profession; except that I knew that the heads of
tigers, deer, and all sorts of trophies of the chase which adorned our
house came from soldier uncles and others who hunted them in India,
and I had always thought that their occupation would suit my taste
admirably. It never dawned on me that I would have to earn my bread
and butter--that had always come along. Moreover, I had never seen
real poverty in others, for all the fisher-folk in our village seemed
to have enough. I hated dress and frills, and envied no one. At
school, and on the Riviera, and even in Wales, I had never noticed any
want. It is true that a number of dear old ladies from the village
came in the winter months to our house once or twice a week to get
s