Naturally, in course of time an uncommon significance became attached to such things as this, and I should have no more thought of keeping my blue sea in the same cupboard as my brother’s maxim gun than he would have allowed that excellent weapon to be the bedfellow of my sister’s famous one-legged nigger doll. We realised far better than our elders the meaning of their favourite shibboleth, “a place for everything”; we knew that the sea air would rust a cannon, and that poor Dorothy could swim but poorly with her one dusky leg. So we tacitly left the cupboard as a place wherein the grown-ups could keep the toys they gave us to please themselves, and found exclusive and more sympathetic hiding-places for our treasures. Now and again a toy might pass through both stages of existence. Mechanical toys did not amuse us at all, until the donors were tired of playing with them, and we might pull them to pieces and make them our very own. And the costly gifts of uncles were useless until the authorities had ceased to see that we took care of them. But these doubtful cases apart, we would divide our presents into their respective groups as soon as we had removed the wrappings. “This and this can go into the cupboard, but this shall go to bed with me to-night!” It was not the person who “understands” children who was most fortunate in the choice of gifts. For the rest, with unconscious satire, we constituted the toy-cupboard the state prison of the nursery. Refractory dolls and kittens, and soldiers awaiting court-martial, repented their crimes in its depressing gloom, and this was really the only share it had in our amusements. Beyond that it stood merely for official “play,” a melancholy traffic in which we never indulged. Its shelves were crowded with the illusions of grown-up people, and, if we considered it at all, it was in the same aspect in which we were wont to regard them. They were obviously well-meaning, but somehow or other they lacked understanding, and the nursery cupboard was full in consequence. THE FAT MAN I MET him first at Lord’s, the best place, perhaps, in all London for making acquaintances and even friends. Even if he had not worn a light suit of clothes that drew the critical eye inevitably to his monstrous girth he would have been conspicuous as occupying with difficulty the space provided for two persons on an afternoon when seats were at a premium. But though I own to no prejudice against flesh in itself, it was not his notable presence that induced me to speak to him, but rather the appealing glances that he threw to right and left of him when he thought to have detected that fine wine of the game which, tasted socially, changes a cricket match to a rare and solemn festival. Such an invitation is one that no one for whom cricket is an inspiration can refuse, and it was natural that thereafter we should praise and criticise in wise and sympathetic chorus.