"Schools are not what they were," says one of my friends. "There is no bullying nowadays and little roughness of any kind. Masters are not looked upon as the natural enemies of boys. Corporal punishment, except for the gravest offences, is abolished. Whereas, formerly, little boys were at once sucked into the vortex of a Public School, there are now Preparatory Schools, where Tommie and Dickie and Harry, aged from nine to ten, learn the business of Public Schooling in a manner suited to their age and capacity. When we were boys," he continues, "these admirable buffer states were so few that they might almost be said not to exist at all; they now flourish everywhere. The path of the little boy is thus made easier for him." "But," I said, "is a little boy, then, never brought to a sense of his unimportance by being physically, if not morally, kicked? Is he to pass his life in a condition of Sybaritic softness?" "You need not," he said, "worry about that. Softness makes no appeal to the average English boy." When therefore, on a day in last week, it happened to me to take a little boy I happen to know to his Preparatory School on his first day of his first term there, I did so with no undue depression. "Be a good boy," I said to him; "never tell a lie, never push yourself forward, and don't swank about yourself." It was good advice so far as it went, but it did not make any great impression on him, for he only answered, "Of course," or "Of course I shan't," to every item that I put before him. I wonder how many fathers have recently inculcated these and similar high-toned principles on their little boys, only to meet with the same uninterested acquiescence. And even our parting was not so dejected as it might have been, for by that time another new boy had come upon the scene, and he and mine had been irresistibly drawn to one another, and were chatting gaily when it was time for me to go. * * * * * [Illustration: THE CELEBRITY. THIS IS BILLY SMIFF, 'IM WOT REMEMBERS THE TIME WHEN THERE WASN'T NO WAR.] * * * * * CHILDREN'S TALES FOR GROWN-UPS. IX. THE UNWRITTEN TREATY. "Be careful," said the worm to the slug, "there is one of those nasty birds over there. What ugly things they are!" "Not half so ugly as men. Ugh!" said the slug. "Men are big, not ugly. They don't eat worms." "But they cut them in two with spades." "Only by accident. There is nothing so ugly as a bloated over-grown bird eating a slender delicate worm." "Except," said the slug, "a monstrous man crushing a tender slug under his clumsy hoofs. Birds I can tolerate. They are not so big as men." "But they hop quicker and eat more for their size," said the worm. "Not slugs, they don't eat slugs. We have a treaty with the birds, you know." "Was it signed?" asked the worm. "There was no need. You see it is a matter of convenience. We don't get eaten, and the birds don't get their beaks slimy."