I say unable, but, as my father pointed out to him immediately after the close of the service, had I suffered any provable damage he would certainly have taken legal advice. Falling from his arms, however, I remained poised for a moment upon the extreme brim of the font, and then fell forward, colliding with the vicar, who stumbled backwards in his efforts to save me. From the tottering vicar I then ricochetted, in what I believe is a military phrase, towards the feet of the junior curate, who became unexpectedly the instrument of Providence. I do not myself practise, nor do I greatly approve, any form of merely athletic exercise. But it was perhaps fortunate that the curate in question happened to be a skilful player of cricket. For just as my head was within an inch of the floor and the blood had receded from every countenance, he shot out his hand and succeeded in catching me in a position technically known, I believe, as the slips. “Oh, well held, sir!” cried the senior curate, and then for a moment or two his emotion overcame him. The vicar, still pale, recovered his balance. “Poor little Augustus,” said my mother; “it’s the irritation.” My father frowned at her. “Without prejudice,” he said. And then for perhaps half a minute there was a deathly silence. It was fractured, I have been told, by myself, as the junior curate handed me back to the senior. But my father intervened. “Not again,” he said. “Never again; never in this world.” The silence was resumed, broken only by myself. My father stood holding me, trembling with emotion. The vicar took a deep breath. “Is the service to proceed?” he asked. “Certainly,” said my father. “But in other hands.” It was another instance of his dominating character, but also of his innate sense of justice. “I am not insensible,” he said to the senior curate, “of the services that you have already rendered. But in the interests of my son, as you must surely agree, I cannot again trust him to your care.” The senior curate bowed, but did not articulate a reply, and my father then handed me once more to the junior. For a moment the latter hesitated, but at the vicar’s request accepted the privilege of concluding my baptism. Later, I have been told, there was a certain amount of argument, in which my father more than held his own, finally absolving the vicar from further sponsorial duties and notifying his decision to transfer his worship elsewhere. For a man of my father’s position this was a serious step. But it was one that he did not hesitate to take. And within a year, as I have always been proud to remember, he had made himself a sidesman at St. James-the-Lesser-Still, Peckham Rye. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER III