+My Schooldays.+ At school I was an exceptionally naughty boy. I cannot conceive what induced me to tell another little boy that I had often produced crab-apples by taking a dead crab and burying it in an orchard, but I did. My little friend, I recollect, didn't believe me, and indeed pulled my nose (always a sore point with me, but he made its point much sorer) for telling what he called "beastly crams." We had a fight, I also remember. Perhaps I ought to call it a "struggle for existence." He was much the "fittest," and he survived. _I_ got licked. +Choice of Calling.+ My extreme naughtiness continued unabated when I became a young man. Nobody expected I should ever "do" anything--except six months' hard labour! At Cambridge I was so shockingly "rowdy," that my father declared, there was no alternative but to send me into the Church. But as I was hunting with the College drag at the hour when I ought to have been in for my Ordination Examination, the Bishop failed to see matters in the same light. I then decided to be a Doctor. If I had stuck to this profession I fancy that my turn for trying experiments would have landed me in some exalted position--possibly at Newgate. As it was, after attending a lecture on Surgery, I was discovered in the local Hospital trying to cut off a patient's leg on an entirely new principle, with a pair of scissors and an old meat-saw, and I was nearly "run in" for manslaughter. I decided to give up Medicine, and a slight shindy over a supposed error of mine in calculating a score having prevented my becoming a success as a Public-house Billiard-marker, I thought I would make my mark in another way, as a breeder of race-horses. Being, however, forcibly chucked out of Newmarket Heath one day for an alleged irregularity which I never could understand, I began really to wonder what profession I _was_ fitted to adorn. +I become a Naturalist.+ It was at this time that the Captain of the _Sea-Mew_ offered me that post of which I have before spoken. I accepted it, and began at once to lower the record in sea-sickness, being never once well on board ship _for three whole years_! It was a new experience, and altered me a good deal. From being rowdy and idle I became quiet and abnormally diligent. If you don't believe this, ask +H-xl-y+ (who is such fun!). On returning to England I at once settled Down, and began to write books. +The "Origin of Species."+ This work is my title to fame. It only took me thirty-three years and six months to write. I felt quite glad when it was finished. People who have read it tell me they feel the same, The row it caused was frightful! If you want to see "+Soapy Sam's+" slashing _Quarterly Review_ article pulverised, read +H-xl-y's+ reply. (But, query--isn't this scientific log-rolling?) The remark which was made, after perusing the book, by that eminent Botanist, my friend Professor +Hookey+, was--"Walker!" But he was soon converted. +My Way of Working.+