I was kept standing there for more than two hours, when my captor, the old gardener, came and had a look at me, and went into the house and returned with a stout red-faced man, with no hat and a white handkerchief round his neck, who went into the house. It had got dark by this time, and the lights were lit; he presently returned, and the cowardly old brute, took me by the collar and almost choked me, and pressed his great coarse knuckles into my neck, and tried to hurt me as much as he could. I should have liked to have had him to myself for a little time. I know his poor old shins would have known it. He fairly dragged me into the house and through a glass door into the dining room, where there were at least ten or twelve ladies and gentlemen at dessert. I was taken to the end of the table, where a tall, white-haired old gentleman sat who was very deaf, and I was questioned by two or three of them, and one gentleman who looked like a clergyman, began to lecture me and said how wicked it was to come into a gentleman’s garden to steal the fruit. One young lady said, “Oh, Pa, that cannot be, there is no fruit now.” From questions by one and the other I had to tell them everything; the usher’s going courting seemed to rather amuse the young people. After being seriously talked to I was allowed to go, and was taken out into the front hall, when one of the young ladies came out with a bunch of grapes and some figs and thrust into my hand, and at the side door by the stables I was met by one of the maid servants with a lump of pudding. I very soon made my way down Falcon Lane to the High Street and turned into Church Street, and as I passed old Battersea Church I knew it was nine o’clock, as the bells began to ring—as they did every evening at that time. I think that was about the last of our Wednesday afternoon outings alone, as it came to the knowledge of the usher, and he was afraid it might get to the school authorities. CHAPTER 3.—Entertainments and Sports.