"He said that he found it much easier to understand children, to get his mind into correspondence with their minds when he was fatigued with other work. Personally, I did not understand little children, and they seemed quite outside my experience, and rather incautiously I asked him if children never bored him. He had been standing up for most of the time, and when I asked him that, he sat down suddenly. 'They are three-fourths of my life,' he said. 'I cannot understand how any one could be bored by little children. I think when you are older you will come to see this--I hope you'll come to see it.' "After that he changed the subject once more, and became again the mathematician--a little formal, and rather weary." Mr. Girdlestone probably had a unique experience, for it was but rarely that Mr. Dodgson so far unburdened himself to a comparative stranger, and what was even worse, to a "grown-up stranger." Now I have given you two different phases of Lewis Carroll at Oxford--Lewis Carroll as the little girl's companion, and Lewis Carroll sitting by the fireside telling something of his inner self to a young man. I am going on to talk about my life with him at Eastbourne, where I used, year by year, to stay with him at his house in Lushington Road. He was very fond of Eastbourne, and it was from that place that I received the most charming letters that he wrote me. Here is one, and I could hardly say how many times I have taken this delightful letter from its drawer to read through and through again. "7 LUSHINGTON ROAD, EASTBOURNE, "_September 17, 1893_. "Oh, you naughty, naughty little culprit! If only I could fly to Fulham with a handy little stick (ten feet long and four inches thick is my favourite size) how I would rap your wicked little knuckles. However, there isn't much harm done, so I will sentence you to a very mild punishment--only one year's imprisonment. If you'll just tell the Fulham policeman about it, he'll manage all the rest for you, and he'll fit you with a nice pair of handcuffs, and lock you up in a nice cosy dark cell, and feed you on nice dry bread, and delicious cold water. [Illustration: ST. GEORGE THE DRAGON] "But how badly you _do_ spell your words! I _was_ so puzzled about the 'sacks full of love and baskets full of kisses!' But at last I made out why, of course, you meant 'a sack full of _gloves_, and a basket full of _kittens_!' Then I understood what you were sending me. And just then Mrs. Dyer came to tell me a large sack and a basket had come. There was such a miawing in the house, as if all the cats in Eastbourne had come to see me! 'Oh, just open them please, Mrs. Dyer, and count the things in them!' "So in a few minutes Mrs. Dyer came and said, '500 pairs of gloves in the sack and 250 kittens in the basket.'