With my two friends, also, Simeon and Silas Whey, I had many hours of fruitful companionship. Equally segregated with myself from the majority of their schoolfellows, though less upon moral and intellectual than purely physical grounds, they were yet earnest and high-minded lads with many notably endearing qualities. Reticent to an extreme, partly, in the case of Silas, owing to an initial difficulty in articulating anything at all, and in the case of Simeon, owing to a kind of laryngeal click from which he is still unfortunately a sufferer, they appeared to find a comfort in my own natural eloquence that I was only too glad to bestow upon them. In return for this, their ample pocket-money was always entirely at my disposal, and many a pound of toffee and Turkish delight was I able to enjoy at their expense. Like myself unaddicted to athletics, and thereby preserved from its associated vices, they would saunter for hours with me discussing some favourite Bible character or humming in unison some well-known hymn; and we were further united, if that were possible, in our eventual confirmation by the self-same Bishop. Nevertheless, as I have said, it was chiefly upon myself that I had to depend for company; and in my walks abroad, my studies of the shop-windows, and my exploration of the neighbouring churches, my closest comrade was myself, and I can honestly say that I have never regretted it. Nor must it be supposed that the hours so spent were entirely devoid of legitimate adventure. On two or three occasions, for instance, I was abruptly addressed by some surprised or suspicious verger, and once, owing to ignorance of its usual closing hours, I was incarcerated in a local cemetery. Confined by railings too lofty to scale and too narrowly approximated to permit egress, for a few moments the prospects were sufficiently black to cause a sensible quickening of my pulse. A felicitous remark, however, addressed to an under-gardener, secured my exit by a private gate, and I hurried home, not without relief, but none the worse for my little mischance. Nor shall I forget the thrill, perhaps a trifle guilty, with which I discovered, soon after I was sixteen, how to descend from a vehicle in motion without the sacrifice of an erect position. Hitherto, like my father, when travelling by tram or omnibus, I had always insisted upon complete immobility prior both to entrance into and departure from one of these public conveyances; and many a conductor had been reported by us both for failing to secure the requisite lack of motion. Upon my sixteenth birthday, however, perceiving that the omnibus in which I was journeying could not be brought to a standstill at the desired position, I decided to alight from it notwithstanding, and boldly descended from its posterior step.