child left
in many of them made them the more attractive.

When I first went to school, the selection and purchase of my outfit
was, for some inscrutable reason, left to my sisters' governess, an
elderly lady to whom I was quite devoted. This excellent person,
though, knew very little about boys, and nothing whatever as to their
requirements. Her mind harked back to the "thirties" and "forties," and
she endeavoured to reconstitute the dress of little boys at that
period. She ordered for me a velvet tunic for Sunday wear, of the sort
seen in old prints, and a velvet cap with a peak and tassel, such as
young England wore in William IV.'s days. She had large, floppy, limp
collars specially made for me, of the pattern worn by boys in her
youth; every single article of my unfortunate equipment had been
obsolete for at least thirty years. In my ignorance, and luckily not
knowing what was in store for me, I felt immensely proud of my new kit.

On the first Sunday after my arrival at school, I arrayed myself with
great satisfaction in a big, floppy collar, and my new velvet tunic,
amidst the loud jeers of all the other boys in the dormitory. I was,
however, hardly prepared for the yells and howls of derision with which
my appearance in the school-room was greeted; my unfortunate garments
were held to be so unspeakably grotesque that boys laughed till the
tears ran down their cheeks. As church-time approached the boys
produced their high hats, which I found were worn even by little
fellows of eight; I had nothing but my terrible tasselled velvet cap,
the sight of which provoked even louder jeers than the tunic had done.
We marched to church two and two, in old-fashioned style in a
"crocodile," but not a boy in the school would walk beside me in my
absurd garments, so a very forlorn little fellow trotted to church
alone behind the usher, acutely conscious of the very grotesque figure
he was presenting. I must have been dressed very much as Henry
Fairchild was when he went to visit his little friend Master Noble. On
returning from church, I threw my velvet cap into the water-butt,
where, for all I know, it probably is still, and nothing would induce
me to put on the velvet tunic or the floppy collars a second time. I
bombarded my family with letters until I found myself equipped with a
high hat and Eton jackets and collars such as the other boys wore.

We were taught French at Chittenden's by a very pleasant old Belgian,
M. Va