She and one of her boys spent nearly three hours one evening preparing a letter to a far-away sister, the mother painfully composing the sentences, the lad painfully writing them down. The glorious epistle was at last complete, the first great triumph of a combined intellectual effort between mother and son. Proudly they held the letter to the candle-light to dry the ink, when the flame caught it, and behold! the work of three laborious hours destroyed in three seconds. It was more than they could bear. Mother and son sat down and cried together. [Illustration: THE CROOKS FAMILY. (_Will is the second child from the right, looking over his father's left shoulder._)] "I have nothing but praise for my other schoolmaster," says Crooks. "I mean the schoolmaster at the old George Green schools in East India Dock Road. They were elementary schools then, and we paid a penny a week, though even that small sum for all of us meant a sacrifice for mother. The schoolmaster there was essentially a kind man. He had me under his teaching in the Sunday school as well as in the day school. During the few years I was with him prior to my workhouse days I learnt much that has been of service to me ever since." Neither books nor papers found their way into Shirbutt Street. The first paper he remembers reading was _The British Workman_, brought occasionally to the little house in High Street just after the workhouse days. Then came a short spell of penny dreadfuls, from among which "Alone in a Pirate's Lair" stands out in memory riotous and reeking to this day. Though the mother could not read herself, she encouraged her children by borrowing occasional magazines and inviting them to read the contents to her and her neighbours. "I was about ten or eleven when _The Leisure Hour_ and _The Sunday at Home_ were started, and mother and the neighbours used to get these and ask us boys to read the stories to them. "I owe something to an old man who went round the poor people's houses selling books. From him I got some of Dickens's novels. I suddenly found myself in a new and delightful world. Having been in the workhouse myself, how I revelled in Oliver Twist! How I laughed at Bumble and the gentleman in the white waistcoat! I have seen that white waistcoat, pompous and truculent, administering the Poor Law many times since. "After the unceasing hunger I experienced in the workhouse, you can guess how I sympathised with Oliver in his demand for more. I thought that a delightful touch in one of our L.C.C. day schools the other day. The teacher asked a class what books they liked best. "'Oliver Twist,' came one little chap's answer. "'Why?' "'Because he asked for more.'"