shops, under railway arches, over railway bridges. I have forgotten

the detailed local characteristics-if there were any-of much of

that region altogether. I was only there two years, and half my

perambulations occurred at dusk or after dark. But with Penge I

associate my first realisations of the wonder and beauty of twilight

and night, theeffect of dark walls reflecting lamplight, and the

mystery of blue haze-veiled hillsides of houses, the glare of shops

by night, the glowing steam and streaming sparks of railway trains

and railway signals lit up in the darkness. My first rambles in the

evening occurred at Penge-I was becoming a big and independent-

spirited boy-and I began myexperience of smoking during these

twilight prowls with the threepenny packets of American cigarettes

then just appearing in the world.

My life centred upon the City Merchants School. Usually I caught

the eight-eighteen for Victoria, I had a midday meal and tea; four

nights a week I stayed for preparation, and often I was not back

home again until within an hour of my bedtime. I spent my half

holidays at school in order to play cricket and football. This, and

a pretty voracious appetite for miscellaneous reading which was

fostered by the Penge Middleton Library, did not leave me much

leisure for local topography. On Sundays also I sang in the choir

at St. Martin 's Church, and my mother did not like me to walk out

alone on the Sabbath afternoon, sheherself slumbered, so that I

wrote or read at home. I must confess I was at home as little as I

could contrive.

Home, after my father's death, had become a veryquiet and

uneventful place indeed. My mother had either an unimaginative

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