My nephew Rupert has been spending part of his Easter holidays with me. There is nothing like a boy of fifteen for adding an atmosphere to a house--in which term I include a garden. It is a special atmosphere, hard to define, but quite unmistakable when you have once lived in it. It is compounded of football, cricket, hockey--these are not actual, but conversational--of visits to the stables, romps with dogs in a library, tousled hair, muddy trousers, a certain contempt for time, the loan of my collar-stud, an insatiable desire to look through the back volumes of _Punch_, long rides on a bicycle and an irresistible tendency of ink to the fingers, presumably caused by the terrible duty of writing letters to parents. There may be other ingredients, but these are the chief. I am bound to add that he is a very amiable boy, with a strong sense of humour, and that he associates on very friendly terms with the little girls, his cousins, who form the majority of this household, it being quite understood that, for the time, they become boys while he remains what he is. The other morning Rupert evidently had something on his mind. He made various half-hearted and thoroughly unsuccessful efforts to leave the room, twiddled his cap in his hands, tripped over the rug and finally spoke. "Thanks awfully, Uncle Harry, for lending me your bicycle." "That's all right," I said. "You're very welcome to it. It's a good thing for it to be used." "Yes," he said, "but I shan't want it again." "Tired of it?" I said. "Well, there's no compulsion." "Oh, I know that--thanks awfully--but it isn't that. It's a ripping bicycle. I should like to ride it for ever, but----" "Well, what is it? Out with it." "I've got one of my own." "One of your own!" I said. "How's that? You hadn't got one yesterday." "No, but I've got one now. I bought it this morning at Hickleden. There's a bicycle shop there, and I heard there was a good bicycle for sale cheap, so I went over this morning and had a ride on it, and it suited me splendidly, so I bought it, and I've got it here." "Bought it?" I said. "That's all very well; but how did you pay for it?" "That," he said, "is where all the bother comes in." "It generally does," I said. "Either you've got the money, and then it seems such a waste; or you haven't got it, and then it's a lifetime of misery. Debt, my boy, is an awful thing." "Don't rag, Uncle Harry; I've got the money all right." "Then be a man and shell out." "Yes, but that's just what I can't do. It's this way: the price of the bicycle is five pounds seventeen and sixpence." "And a very good price too." "It's got three gears and a lamp and everything complete. Well, I've got three pounds ten in the Post-Office Savings Bank. I put it in in London." "That's a good beginning, anyhow." "Yes, and Aunt Mary gave me a pound for my birthday, and I put that in at the post-office here yesterday. It's better not to keep pounds in your pocket."