Every morning, I swear, thou readest avidly the
list of male births in thy paper, and then are thy
hands rubbed gloatingly the one upon the other.
'Tis fear of thee and thy gown and thy cane, which
are part of thee, that makes the fairies to hide by
day; wert thou to linger but once among their
haunts between the hours of Lock-out and Open
Gates there would be left not one single gentle
place in all the Gardens. The little people would
flit. How much wiser they than the small boys
who swim glamoured to thy crafty hook. Thou
devastator of the Gardens, I know thee, Pilkington.

I first heard of Pilkington from David, who had
it from Oliver Bailey.

This Oliver Bailey was one of the most dashing
figures in the Gardens, and without apparent effort
was daily drawing nearer the completion of his
seventh year at a time when David seemed unable
to get beyond half-past five. I have to speak of
him in the past tense, for gone is Oliver from the
Gardens (gone to Pilkington's), but he is still a
name among us, and some lordly deeds are remem-
bered of him, as that his father shaved twice a day.
Oliver himself was all on that scale.

His not ignoble ambition seems always to have
been to be wrecked upon an island, indeed I am
told that he mentioned it insinuatingly in his
prayers, and it was perhaps inevitable that a boy
with such an outlook should fascinate David. I

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