last escaped, a piece of paper on the schoolroom table, on which he had
written

"Passionate Magey
Toodle Ha! Ha!
The old gose."

There was another story of how he was asked to write out a list of the
things he wanted, with a view to a birthday that was coming. The list
ended:

"A little compenshion goat, and
A tiny-winy train, and
A nice little pen."

The diminutives were evidently intended to give the requirements a
modest air. As for "compenshion," he had asked what some nursery animal
was made of, a fracture having displayed a sort of tough fibrous
plaster. He was told that it was made of "a composition."

We used to play many rhyming games at that time; and Hugh at the age of
eight wrote a poem about a swarm of gnats dancing in the sun, which
ended:

"And when they see their comrades laid
In thousands round the garden glade,
They know they were not really made
To live for evermore."

In one of these games, each player wrote a question which was to be