Like most boys he went through the usual run of hobbies: silkworms, carpentry, stamp-collecting, photography, parlour railways. Thoroughness was his quality even in his hobbies. He had the note-taking habit in marked degree. Even as a small boy on a long railway journey he would carefully record in his notebook the name of every station through which the train passed, and then, on reaching his destination, would work out the distances by maps and books, and finally draw an outline showing the route with the principal stations and junctions marked. The same passion for classifying facts made him, as soon as he began to follow cricket closely, compile tables showing the batting and bowling averages of the leading players. Similarly with football. He was familiar with the record of the leading Rugby clubs and the characteristics of the principal players. Machinery had for him the fascination of life in motion. He would gaze with rapture at the rhythmic movement of a flywheel and was thrilled by the harmonious movement of cogs and eccentrics, pistons and connecting-rods, all "singing like the morning stars for joy that they are made." As a child visiting a printing office he used to clap his hands with delight at the sight of "the wheels all turning." For engines of all sorts he had a passion. At Plymouth he loved to watch the great G.W.R. locomotives steaming into Millbay terminus, and would often engage the driver or stoker in conversation. After our removal to London he spent part of one vacation in an engineering shop. When he was fifteen we bought for him a small gas-engine which was fixed in an upper room. Clad in overalls he spent many a happy hour with this engine, generating electricity which he used sometimes for lighting, sometimes for driving the engine and train on his miniature railway. Here are extracts from one of his vacation diaries: JANUARY, 1912 _January 1._--Went with Mother to first night of _Nightbirds_ at the Lyric. Workman and Constance Driver excellent; Farkoa also very good. _January 2-5._--Busy making switchboard at home. At the engineering workshop I am starting on a steel rod; cutting with hack saw, cutting 5/16 standard Whitworth thread; grooving it. All this on a Drummond 3-1/2-inch lathe. _January 6._--Heard of 4 v. 20 a.h. accumulator for 10s. 6d. I must buy it. Splendid acc. it is. Finished switchboard; all correct; polished up meters and instruments. [Here is diagram of connections.] Evening.--At _Tales of Hoffmann_, Opera House, with Mother. Good performance. First and third acts excellent; second ("Barcarolle" act) poor. Orchestra superb. Felice Lyne, Pollock, Victoria Fer--artistes of great promise. Renaud a master. _January 7._--Wrote Economic Electric for new dynamo. Received letter from "Humber" recommending motor bike. I will probably buy one later on, or a "Triumph."