After a while Mr. Clerke ceased to be put out by my asking strange unchildish questions which he was not always able to answer. He often said, "We will ask Mr. Andrewes what he thinks;" and for my own part, I respected him none the less that he often honestly confessed that he could not, off-hand, solve all the problems that exercised my brain. He was not a good general naturalist but he was fond of geology, and was kind enough to take me out with him on "chipping" expeditions, and to start me with a "collection" of fossils. I had already a collection of flowers, a collection of shells, a collection of wafers, and a collection of seals. (People did not collect monograms and old stamps in my young days.) These collections were a sore vexation to Nurse Bundle. "Whatever a gentleman like the Rector is thinking of, for to encourage you in such rubbish, my dear," said she, "it passes me! It's vexing enough to see dirt and bits about that shouldn't be, when you can take the dust-pan and clear 'em away. But to have dead leaves, and weeds, and stones off the road brought in day after day, and not be allowed so much as to touch them, and a young gentleman that has things worth golden guineas to play with, storing up a lot of stuff you could pick off any rubbish-heap in a field before it's burned--if it was anybody but you, my dear, I couldn't abear it. And what's a tutor for, I should like to know?" (Mrs. Bundle, who at no time liked blaming her darling, had now acquired a habit of laying the blame of any misdoings of mine on the tutor, on the ground that he "ought to have seen to" my acting differently.) If Mr. Clerke discovered that he could confess to being puzzled by some of my questions, without losing ground in his pupil's respect, I soon found out that my grown-up tutor had not altogether outlived boyish feelings. It dimly dawned on me that he liked a holiday quite as well, if not better than myself; and as we grew more intimate we had many a race and scramble and game together, when bookwork was over for the day. He rode badly, but with courage, and the mishaps he managed to suffer when riding the quietest and oldest of my father's horses were food for fun with him as well as with me.