way with equal ease; he is now a famous Academician, and seems to have
preserved much of his old facility.[A]

[Footnote A: _Note_.--I have here omitted several pages, containing a
description in detail of my cousin's life "at Bluefriars"; and also the
portraits (not always flattering) which he has written of masters and
boys, many of whom are still alive, and some of whom have risen to
distinction; but these sketches would be without special interest unless
the names were given as well, and that would be unadvisable for many
reasons. Moreover, there is not much in what I have left out that has
any bearing on his subsequent life, or the development of his character.
MADGE PLUNKET.]

* * * * *

Thus, on the whole, my school career was neither happy nor unhappy, nor
did I distinguish myself in any way, nor (though I think I was rather
liked than otherwise) make any great or lasting friendships; on the
other hand. I did not in any way disgrace myself, nor make a single
enemy that I knew of. Except that I grew our of the common tall and
very strong, a more commonplace boy than I must have seemed (after my
artistic vein gad run itself dry) never went to a public school. So much
for my outer life at Bluefriars.

[Illustration: A DREAM OF CHIVALRY]

But I had an inner world of my own, whose capital was Passy, whose fauna
and flora were not to be surpassed by anything in Regent's Park or the
Zoological Gardens.