was in his first knickerbockers--he was a lonely little soul and lived
in a world of his own, peopled by the creatures of his own imaginings.
His great friend was Mr. Bathboth of Bathboth--don't you like the
name?--and he would come in from a walk with his nurse, fling down his
cap and remark, "I've been seeing Mr. Bathboth in his own house--oh! a
lovely house. It's a _public-house_!"

I'm afraid he was a very low character this Mr. Bathboth. According to
Peter, "he smoked, and he swored, and he put his fingers to his nose
when his mother said he wasn't to," so we weren't surprised to hear of
his end. He was pulled up to heaven by a crane for bathing in the sea
on Sunday. Another of Peter's creatures was a bogle called "Windy
Wallops" who lived in the garrets and could only be repulsed with
hairbrushes. "Whippetie Stoowrie," on the other hand, was a kindly
creature inhabiting the nursery chimney, and given to laying small
offerings such as a pistol and caps or a sugar mouse on the fender. A
strange fancy once took Peter to dig graves for us all in the garden.
It wasn't that he disliked us; on the contrary, he considered he was
doing us an honour. My grave was suggestively near the rubbish-heap,
but he pointed out that it was because the lily-of-the-valley grew
there. One day he came in earthy but determined-looking. "Dodo didn't
send me anything for my birthday," he announced, "so I've _filled up
his grave_."

Now Peter has gone to school and has put away childish things, and the
desire to be a knight like Launcelot. He no longer babbles to himself
in such a way as to make strangers doubt of his sanity; and he
confided to me lately that when he grew up he hoped to lead a Double
Life. He who was brought up in Camelot, he who wept when Roland
at Roncesvalles blew his horn for the last time, now devours