Of all my sons, the youngest, when he was small, was most like myself at the same age. In bodily appearance I could recognise the likeness to my early self, as preserved in old photographs; an old schoolfellow of mine who knew me between the ages of eight and eleven, visiting Mariemont in April 1904, remarked on it forcibly and at once, directly he saw Raymond--then a schoolboy; and innumerable small mental traits in the boy recalled to me my childhood's feelings. Even an absurd difficulty he had as a child in saying the hard letters--the hard G and K--was markedly reminiscent of my own similar difficulty. Another peculiarity which we shared in childhood was dislike of children's parties--indeed, in my own case, a party of any kind. I remember being truly miserable at a Christmas party at The Mount, Penkhull, where I have no doubt that every one was more than friendly,--though probably over-patronising, as people often are with children,--but where I determinedly abstained from supper, and went home hungry. Raymond's prominent instance was at the hospitable Liverpool house, "Greenbank," which the Rathbones annually delivered up to family festivities each Christmas afternoon and evening, being good enough to include us in their family group. On one such occasion Raymond, a very small boy, was found in the hall making a bee-line for the front door and home. I remember sympathising with him, from ancient memories, and taking him home, subsequently returning myself. At a later stage of boyhood I perceived that his ability and tastes were akin to mine, for we had the same passionate love of engineering and machinery; though in my case, having no opportunity of exercising it to any useful extent, it gradually turned into special aptitude for physical science. Raymond was never anything like as good at physics, nor had he the same enthusiasm for mathematics that I had, but he was better at engineering, was in many ways I consider stronger in character, and would have made, I expect, a first-rate engineer. His pertinacious ability in the mechanical and workshop direction was very marked. Nothing could have been further from his natural tastes and proclivities than to enter upon a military career; nothing but a sense of duty impelled him in that direction, which was quite foreign to family tradition, at least on my side. [Illustration: RAYMOND WHEN TWO YEARS OLD] He also excelled me in a keen sense of humour--not only appreciation, but achievement. The whole family could not but admire and enjoy the readiness with which he perceived at once the humorous side of everything; and he usually kept lively any gathering of which he was a unit. At school, indeed, his active wit rather interfered with the studies of himself and others, and in the supposed interests of his classmates it had to be more or less suppressed, but to the end he continued to be rather one of the wags of the school.