This gentleman's two elder sons, at the time to which I allude, had already made their first step in the world. James was making a tour of the West Indies, the Continent being closed against him; and Frank had already begun his harvest of laurels in the navy under a distinguished officer. The younger sons, my juniors, were my school-fellows. Master Frank was two or three years my senior, and before he went to sea, not going to the same school as myself, we got together only during the vacations; when, notwithstanding my prowess, he would fag me desperately at cricket, outswim me on the lake and out-cap me at making Latin verses. However, I consoled myself by saying, "As I grow older all this superiority will cease." But when he returned, after his first cruise, glittering in his graceful uniform, my hopes and my ambition sank below zero. He was already a man, and an officer--I a schoolboy, and nothing else. Of course, he had me home to spend the day with him--and a day we had of it. It was in the middle of summer, and grapes were ripe only in such well-regulated hothouses as were Mr ---'s. We did not enact the well-known fable as it is written--the grapes were not _too_ sour--nor did we repeat the fox's ill-natured and sarcastic observation, "That they were only fit for blackguards." We found them very good for gentlemen--though, I fear, Mr ---'s dessert some time after owed more to Pomona than to Bacchus for its embellishments. And the fine mulberry-tree on the lawn--we were told that it must be shaken, and we shook it: if it still exist, I'll answer for it, it has never been so shaken since.