When he was no more than eight years old he would take his stand on a cart in the middle of the market-place, his boyish figure drawn to its full height, and there harangue the boys who gathered in little groups to hear the young orator. At school there was nothing in any way remarkable about young Humphrey, except, perhaps, that somewhere hid away within him was the gift of rhyme or the gift of poetry. English and Latin verse alike came easy to him, and by-and-by his schoolfellows found out his facility, and they pressed him into their service to compose valentines and love-letters. But except for this he seemed in these early years to be nothing more than a happy, healthy English boy, full of fun and spirits. He would fish off Penzance Pier for grey mullet, catching more than his companions. He would bait his hooks and wait till a shoal of these difficult fish were swimming about the bait, then by a clever jerk of his tackle entangle and capture them. His love of fishing remained with him all through life--almost to the end. So strong was it that even as a man he never could conceal his annoyance if unsuccessful, or if he discovered a friend to have caught a larger number than he. So keen and ardent was he that he would dress himself in green that the wily fish might know no difference between him and the green trees and grassy banks! In his boyhood we find it difficult to trace any germs of that talent for experimenting and inventing that distinguished him in later life. He scooped turnips hollow, and lighted up the insides with candles--but what boy has not experimented in the same way? He made squibs, or "thunder-powder," that exploded on a stone with a loud report that delighted his companions. But there is no trace of an unusual bent of mind here--just an example of an ardent, eager English boy, full of life and spirits. In 1793 he went to school in Truro, not far from Penzance. He was quick, but that was all--a clever boy, not a prodigy. His master, writing long years after, when the boy's name had become a household word in England, said:-- "I did not at that time discover any extraordinary abilities." It must have been a school of the old sort that Mr. Davy had lighted upon for his son, for the story goes that young Humphrey, at times in scrapes like other boys, while punishment hung over him, had these doggrel lines fired off by his master at his head-- "Now, Master Dávy, Now, sir, I háve 'e, No one shall save 'e; Good Master Dávy." And with the end of the rhyme down came the flat ruler on the open palm of the culprit! School, while it may not have done him a great deal of good, at least did not do him much harm. His own frank, buoyant mind prevented his being twisted into a cut-and-dried shape, or pressed into any special mould. Long years after he gave thanks that in those young days he was left very much to his own bent.