It was a bright June morning. The sky was intensely blue and cloudless. The air was full of flower-fragrance and dreamy somnolence. I had seen so little of the world that everything was vivid to me, and touched with the vagrant poetry of romance. Tram-lines were streaks of silver down the streets, shops were palaces, cabbies gentlemen who plied their trade because they loved horses. Postmen going their rounds were philanthropists. Everyone was free, doing what he liked, and happy. In my child’s way I realized that neither my father nor myself was typical--not all little boys were locked in gardens and not all grown men slaved from morning to midnight. A great lump came into my throat. It would have been quite easy to cry, I was so glad. Uncle Obadiah kept chatting away, telling me that the name of his little mare was Dollie and how he came to buy her. “Couldn’t afford it, you know, old chap. She costs me ten shillings a week for fodder. But when I saw that coster whacking her, and she looked up into my eyes when I went to stop him, I just couldn’t resist her. She seemed to be asking me to buy her, and I did. You should have heard what your Aunt Lavinia said.” All the way along the streets he kept pointing with his whip to things that he thought were interesting. He engaged me in conversation--a thing which no one had thought worth doing. He asked me questions which were not senseless, and seemed to suppose that a child had reasoning powers. I was flattered, and began to surprise myself by the boldness of the things I said. We rattled down the City Road, past the Mansion House, over London Bridge to the Elephant and Castle, and so out toward Dulwich till we came within sight of the Crystal Palace. He began to slow down and grow pensive, as though working out a problem. “You see, she’ll have lunch ready. She’s expecting us. She’s very precise about the keeping of hours and won’t like it.” Then, “Hang it all. We may as well have a holiday now we’re out.” Shaking loose the reins we started forward again, racing everything we met upon the road. My uncle’s high spirits returned. I don’t know where we went. I know there were woods and farm-houses. We stopped for lunch at a village-inn. It stood on the edge of a gorse-common. On the common a donkey was grazing. A flock of geese wandered across it. Boys were playing cricket against a tree-stump. Several great wagons, piled high with vegetables, were drawn up, the horses with their heads deep in nose-bags. We had our meal in the tap-room with the wagoners. While they were present my uncle assumed his pontifical manner, addressing me as “young man” and them as “my good fellows.” He was very dignified, and benevolent, and haughty. They were much impressed. But when they had left and we were alone, he winked his eye at me solemnly, as much as to say “that was all pretense. Now let’s be natural,” and entered once more into my boy’s world of escapades and gilded shadows.