This "growth of refinement" as dear mother called it,--"spread of humbug" was my father's name for it--turned her attention, quite suddenly, to what she called my associations. The habit of my body, and mind, had been that of London boyhood in general,--to rush into anything going on, without waiting for an introduction, to give my opinion without invitation upon any public spectacle, or even a proceeding intended to be private until I came round the corner, and upon every occasion to ignore humanity's false exclusiveness. But on Monday morning, when we sat down to look at the people bathing--which my father, from some old-fashioned feeling, would never stop to do, but kept his distance,--mother began to give me a lesson, concerning the duties of society. "Tommy," she said, "did you remark that the little boys go into one machine, and the little girls into the other? And they are not allowed, by the Board of Health, to be less than fifty yards apart." "Yes, mother," I replied, "I was looking at that; and it seems to be the order on the board. But somehow they seem to contrive, in spite of it, to get all together in the water. And the girls--if I can make out which they are--seem to go all the way over to the boys! The board says that they will be prosecuted, with the extreme rigour of the law. There goes another girl, I declare!" "Hush, Tommy, hush! Or society will expel us, like a pair of Pariahs. What I want you to notice, for your own good, is that high society has rules quite different from what the children in the street have. You, unluckily, have been permitted, while your father was in a smaller way of business, to associate with almost any boy of respectable trousers, in the roadway. I admit that I have not been as strict as I should be, partly because it was no good. But now it is high time to draw the line. You see how they put a cord along down there? Now what do you suppose they do it for?" "I am sure I don't know, mother; unless it is, for people to tumble over it." "No, Tommy, no. It is to keep the people out. The inferior classes must not come interfering with those who can pay for all the room they want. Your father is a Tory; but I begin to think, that I shall be a Radical; because I find them make people pay more, for getting into anything. A ticket for a week, for both of us, to see the people bathe, and dress their hair, and everything, was only half a crown for me, and fifteenpence for you, my dear! And you may sit, all the time, on the ground of the earth, which is so much cleaner than the seats they make. Come into this hole, with the rushes on the top--where I dare say some wild animal has lived--and never mind the people in the waves, my dear. What I want you to be, is a great man, Tommy; a very great man, who may look down upon the little ones, and remember (when he has lost his own dear mother) that he owes all his greatness to her counsel, and high principles."