for breakfast. It was over when I got home, and I had mine in the
kitchen. It was dispatched in ten minutes, and my delight in cold
weather then was to lie in front of the fire and read Chambers'
Journal. Blessings on the brothers Chambers for that magazine and
for the Miscellany, which came later! Then there was Charles and
Mary Lamb's Tales of Ulysses. It was on a top shelf in the shop,
and I studied it whilst perched on the shop ladder. Another
memorable volume was a huge atlas-folio, which my sister and I
called the Battle Book. It contained coloured prints, with
descriptions of famous battles of the British Army. We used to lug
it into the dining-room in the evening, and were never tired of
looking at it. A little later I managed to make an electrical
machine out of a wine bottle, and to produce sparks three-quarters
of an inch long. I had learned the words "positive" and "negative",
and was satisfied with them as an explanation, although I had not
the least notion what they meant, but I got together a few friends
and gave them a demonstration on electricity.

Never was there a town better suited to a boy than Bedford at that
time for out-of-door amusements. It was not too big--its population
was about 10,000--so that the fields were then close at hand. The
Ouse--immortal stream--runs through the middle of the High Street.
To the east towards fenland, the country is flat, and the river is
broad, slow, and deep. Towards the west it is quicker, involved,
fold doubling almost completely on fold, so that it takes sixty
miles to accomplish thirteen as the crow flies. Beginning at
Kempston, and on towards Clapham, Oakley, Milton, Harrold, it is
bordered by the gentlest of hills or rather undulations. At Bedford
the navigation for barges stopped, and there were very few pleasure
boats, one of which was mine. The water above the bridge was