It was a neighbourhood in which domestic servants were not much
required. Those intending to take up the calling seriously went
westward. The local ranks were recruited mainly from the discontented
or the disappointed, from those who, unappreciated at home, hoped from
the stranger more discernment; or from the love-lorn, the jilted and
the jealous, who took the cap and apron as in an earlier age their
like would have taken the veil. Maybe, to the comparative seclusion
of our basement, as contrasted with the alternative frivolity of shop
or factory, they felt in such mood more attuned. With the advent of
the new or the recovery of the old young man they would plunge again
into the vain world, leaving my poor mother to search afresh amid the
legions of the cursed.

With these I made such comradeship as I could, for I had no child
friends. Kind creatures were most of them, at least so I found them.
They were poor at "making believe," but would always squeeze ten
minutes from their work to romp with me, and that, perhaps, was
healthier for me. What, perhaps, was not so good for me was that,
staggered at the amount of "book-learning" implied by my conversation
(for the journalistic instinct, I am inclined to think, was early
displayed in me), they would listen open-mouthed to all my
information, regarding me as a precocious oracle. Sometimes they
would obtain permission to take me home with them to tea, generously
eager that their friends should also profit by me. Then, encouraged
by admiring, grinning faces, I would "hold forth," keenly enjoying the
sound of my own proud piping.

"As good as a book, ain't he?" was the tribute most often paid to me.

"As good as a play," one enthusiastic listener, an old greengrocer,