pretending to be a fancy person if he hasn't to do anything, and if I do
speak to him he always remembers who he is. That is why I like playing
in his study better than in the nursery. And Nurse always says "He's
safe enough, with the old gentleman," so I'm allowed to go there as much
as I like.

Godfather Gilpin lets me play with the books, because I always take care
of them. Besides, there is nothing else to play with, except the
window-curtains, for the chairs are always full. So I sit on the floor,
and sometimes I build with the books (particularly Stonehenge), and
sometimes I make people of them, and call them by the names on their
backs, and the ones in other languages we call foreigners, and Godfather
Gilpin tells me what countries they belong to. And sometimes I lie on my
face and read (for I could read when I was four years old), and
Godfather Gilpin tells me the hard words. The only rule he makes is,
that I must get all the books out of one shelf, so that they are easily
put away again. I may have any shelf I like, but I must not mix the
shelves up.

I always took care of the books, and never had any accident with any of
them till the day I dropped Jeremy Taylor's _Sermons_. It made me very
miserable, because I knew that Godfather Gilpin could never trust me so
much again.

However, if it had not happened, I should not have known anything about
the Brothers of Pity; so, perhaps (as Mrs. James, Godfather Gilpin's
house-keeper, says), "All's for the best," and "It's an ill wind that
blows nobody good."

It happened on a Sunday, I remember, and it was the day after the day on