THE ASTHMATIC OLD GENTLEMAN AND HIS RIDDLES—I PLAY TRUANT AGAIN—IN THE BIG GARDEN It was perhaps partly because, like most only children, I was accustomed to be with grown-up people, that I liked the way in which Mr. Andrewes treated me, and resented the very different style of another friend of my father, who always bantered me in a playful, nonsensical fashion, which he deemed suitable to my years.
 
The friend in question was an old gentleman, and a very benevolent one. I think he was fond of children, and I am sure he was kind.
 
He never came without giving me half-a-guinea before he left, generally slipping it down the back of my neck, or hiding it under my plate at dinner, or burying it in an orange. He had a whole store of funny tricks, which would have amused and pleased me if I might have enjoyed them in peace. But he never ceased teasing me, and playing practical jokes on me. And the worst of it was, he teased Rubens also.
 
Mr. Andrewes often afterwards told of the day when I walked into the Rectory—my indignant air, he vowed, faithfully copied by the dog at my heels, and without preface began:
 
"I know I ought to forgive them that trespass[140] against us, but I can't. He put cayenne pepper on to Rubens' nose."
 
In justice to ourselves, I must say that neither Rubens nor I bore malice on this point, but it added to the anxiety which I always felt to get out of the old gentleman's way.
 
By him I was put through those riddles which puzzle all childish brains in turn: "If a herring and a half cost threehalfpence," etc. And if I successfully accomplished this calculation, I was tripped up by the unfair problem, "If your grate is of such and such dimensions, what will the coals come to?" I can hear his voice now (hoarse from a combination of asthma and snuff-taking) as he poked me jocosely but unmercifully "under the fifth rib," as he called it, crying—
 
"Ashes! my little man. D'ye see? Ashes! Ashes!"
 
After which he took more snuff, and nearly choked himself with laughing at my chagrin.
 
Greatly was Nurse Bundle puzzled that night, when I stood, ready for bed, fumbling with both hands under my nightshirt, and an expression of face becoming a surgeon conducting a capital operation.
 
"Bless the dear boy!" she cried. "What are you doing to yourself, my dear?"
 
"How does he know which is the fifth rib?" I almost howled in my vexation. "I don't believe it was the fifth rib! I wish I hadn't a fifth rib! I wish I might hurt his fifth rib!"
 
I think the old gentleman would have choked with laughter if he could have seen and heard me.
 
One day, to my father's horror, I candidly remarked,[141]
 
"It always makes me think of the first of April, sir, when you're here."
 
I did not mean to be rude. It was simply true that the succession of "sells" and practical jokes of which Rubens and I were the victims during his visits did recall the tricks supposed to be sacred to the Festival of All Fools.
 
To do the old gentleman justice, he heartily enjoyed the joke at his own expense; laughed and took snuff in extra proportions, and gave me a whole guinea instead of half a one, saying that I should go to live with him in Fools' Paradise, where little pigs ran about ready roasted with knives and forks in their backs; adding more banter and nonsense of the same kind, to the utter bewilderment of my brain.
 
He was the occasion of my playing truant to the Rectory a second time. Once, when he was expected, I took............