For a brief period, therefore, and after medical advice, my father resolved to employ extraneous aid, and at a very considerable financial sacrifice engaged a person called Mrs. O’Flaherty. The widow of a colour-sergeant, and one of the church scrubbers, she was highly recommended by the vicar of St. James-the-Lesser-Still, and was not devoid, in certain deceptive respects, of the superficial charm of her race. Ominously developed as she was, both below and above the waist, her features were informed with an unintelligent but specious cheerfulness; and these, together with a not unattractive complexion, sufficed for some time to impose upon my mother. My father, from the beginning, had his doubts of her character, but in view of the vicar’s recommendation, decided to employ her; and for the first month or two, apart from her habit of singing, found no cause for particular complaint. He even went so far, upon my mother’s intercession, as to allow the woman to bring her youngest child with her, a somewhat gross and over-exuberant lad a few months younger than myself. That this youth, practically a gutter-snipe, and afterwards a private in the army, should have become a Brigadier-General in the late war, and even have received, as I understand, some kind of decoration, was one of the most deplorable of the many social upheavals for which that disaster was responsible. From the very outset, with that sensitiveness of vision granted by Providence to certain children, I regarded this new intruder with the deepest suspicion. Obviously inheriting the physique of his mother, and as it seemed the proclivities of his father, his chief article of amusement appeared to be a small cannon, equipped with a spring for purposes of propulsion. This he offered to lend me on the occasion of his first visit, but declining his advances I moved to another room, where I continued my study of a book upon the apostles, written for the young by a Somersetshire clergyman. Undeterred, however, by a reticence that should have been more than sufficient for a boy with the least good feeling, Desmond, for that was his pretentious name, made a similar offer on his second visit. Again I declined and removed myself, subsequently mentioning the matter to my father, who instantly gave orders that for the future Mrs. O’Flaherty’s boy was to be confined to the kitchen. “You will kindly make it clear,” he said, “to your son that I cannot have my own son disturbed, and that admission to my house does not necessarily include admission to my social circle.” Unfortunately, owing to a very natural slip due to the rapidity of his elocution, my father pronounced these words as sershle soakle; and I have never forgotten the vulgar and ill-concealed grin with which Mrs. O’Flaherty promised to attend to the matter.