his companion, in place of the good-natured but incapable boy Charles,
whom he had brought with him from London to teach collecting. In reply
to some remarks by his sister about a young man who she thought would be
suitable, he wrote: "Do not tell me merely that he is 'a very nice young
man.' Of course he is.... I should like to know whether he can live on
rice and salt fish for a week on occasion.... Can he sleep on a
board?... Can he walk twenty miles a day? Whether he can work, for there
is sometimes as hard work in collecting as in anything. Can he saw a
piece of wood straight? Ask him to make you anything--a little card box,
a wooden peg or bottle-stopper, and see if he makes them neat and
square."

In another letter he describes the garden and live stock he had been
able to obtain where he was living; and in yet another he gives a long
list of his domestic woes and tribulations--which, however, were
overcome with the patience inculcated in early life by his hobbies, and
also by the fact that the family was always more or less in straitened
circumstances, so that the children were taught to make themselves
useful in various ways in order to assist their mother in the home.

As he grew from childhood into youth, Alfred Wallace's extreme
sensitiveness developed to an almost painful degree. He grew rapidly,
and his unusual height made him still more shy when forced to occupy any
prominent position amongst boys of his own age. During the latter part
of his time at Hertford Grammar School his father was unable to pay the
usual fees, and it was agreed that Alfred should act as pupil teacher
in return for the lessons received. This arrangement, while acceptable
on the one hand, caused him actual mental and physical pain on the
other, as it increased his consciousness of the disabilities under which
he laboured in contrast with most of the other boys of his own age.