During that November the fogs were very bad and, as an epidemic term had compelled the Misses Marrow to close their school, Michael brooded at home in the gaslit rooms that shone dully in the street of footsteps. The long morning would drag its length out, and dinner would find no appetite in Michael. Stella seemed not to care to play and would mope with round eyes saddened by this eternal gloom. Dusk was merely marked by the drawing down of the blinds at the clock’s hour without regard to the transit from day to night. Michael used to wonder if it were possible that this fog would last for ever, if for ever he would live in Carlington Road in this yellow twilight, if his mother had forgotten there ever was such a person as Michael Fane. But, at any rate, he would have to grow up. He could not always be the same size. That was a consolation. It was jolly to dream of being grown-up, to plan one’s behaviour and think of freedom. The emancipation of being grown-up seemed to Michael to be a magnificent prospect. To begin with it was no longer possible to be naughty. He realized, indeed, that crimes were a temptation to some grown-ups, that people of a certain class committed murders and burglaries, but as he felt no inclination to do either, he looked forward to a life of unbroken virtue. So far as he could ascertain, grown-up people were exempt from even the necessity to distinguish between good and evil. If Michael examined the Commandments one by one, this became obvious. _Thou shalt have none other gods than me_ . Why should one want to have? One was enough. The Children of Israel must be different from Michael. He could not understand such peculiar people. _Make not to thyself any graven image_ . The only difficulty about this commandment was its length for learning. Otherwise it did not seem to bear on present-day life. _Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain_ . This was another vague injunction. Who wanted to? _Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath Day_ . It was obviously a simple matter for grown-up people, who no longer enjoyed playing with toys, to keep this commandment. At present it was