face, feet foremost? Very stale. On his stomach, sideways? Paltry! On
his back, with his arms stretched down on both sides? Forbidden! Or on
his face, head foremost, in a manner unknown as yet to any but himself?
Such was the cause of the frown on the illuminated face of little
Jon....

In that Summer of 1909 the simple souls who even then desired to
simplify the English tongue, had, of course, no cognizance of little
Jon, or they would have claimed him for a disciple. But one can be too
simple in this life, for his real name was Jolyon, and his living father
and dead half-brother had usurped of old the other shortenings, Jo and
Jolly. As a fact little Jon had done his best to conform to convention
and spell himself first Jhon, then John; not till his father had
explained the sheer necessity, had he spelled his name Jon.

Up till now that father had possessed what was left of his heart by the
groom, Bob, who played the concertina, and his nurse "Da," who wore
the violet dress on Sundays, and enjoyed the name of Spraggins in that
private life lived at odd moments even by domestic servants. His mother
had only appeared to him, as it were in dreams, smelling delicious,
smoothing his forehead just before he fell asleep, and sometimes docking
his hair, of a golden brown colour. When he cut his head open against
the nursery fender she was there to be bled over; and when he had
nightmare she would sit on his bed and cuddle his head against her neck.
She was precious but remote, because "Da" was so near, and there is
hardly room for more than one woman at a time in a man's heart. With his
father, too, of course, he had special bonds of union; for little
Jon also meant to be a painter when he grew up--with the one small
difference, that his father painted pictures, and little Jon intended to
paint ceilings and walls, standing on a board between two step-ladders,