two-thirds than ours. Nobody in the school,
however, thought the worse of Garnett for
being a foundation-boy. But there was a
far greater objection still to my becoming
intimate with him. His father was, like
mine, a stockbroker, but of a lower grade;
and even from this lower grade he had
miserably fallen. Respectable men in the
same business, like my father, did not recognise
such men as old Garnett. He had no
office, but only a wretched garret in a court
out of Saint Swithin's Lane; on the door of
which his name was painted, but with the word
"private" to warn clients, if indeed he had
any, not to enter without knocking, for this,
besides being his office, was his bedroom,
sittingroom, and kitchen. He hung about
the Stock Exchange in a greasy old coat and
a rusty hat, or loitered on the steps of offices
in courts adjacent, talking with other men as
greasy and rusty as himself, about nobody
knew what kind of business, for he had no
money to buy for himself, and would hardly
have been entrusted to buy or sell for others.
He must have had some remnant of pride,
too, for he felt himself to be too shabby in
appearance, even for the father of a boy on
the foundation of the Brewers' School; and,
when he visited his son, made an appointment
to meet him in the garden of Salters'
Hall, where I often saw them talking and
pacing to and fro together.

Notwithstanding all these things, I had a
profound admiration for Garnett's noble
qualities, and what were, to me, his
marvellous powers. It often happens that boys
so bold and hardy, so full of active life and
spirit, are slow in acquiring book
knowledge; but he was not. He was, indeed,
first in most things. There was no Pons
Asinorum at which he broke down. His
verses had rarely a false quantity. He had
what, for a boy, must have been a wonderful
knowledge of algebra. He could draw better
than any of us; and even in his sports was
equally dexterous and clever. Many boys
were jealous of him; but no shadow of such
feeling fell on me. I gloried in his success,
as if it was my own; and was fond of praising
him to my friends and others. What was
there that Garnett could not do? " Ah!" I
used to say, " I wish you could hear Garnett."
I was proud of knowing him— proud that he
should choose me, above all the others in the
school, to be his friend and constant
companion. Walking about with him, my arm
in his, or leaning on his shoulder, I was
always cheerful and content, for I never
thought of his slovenly appearance. On
holidays, the boys went roaming about where
they pleased. Some sat in Guildhall, on raw,
wintry, and foggy days, looking at the painted
giants and the sculptured tombs, and warming
their numbed fingers at the charcoal fires,
kept burning in braziers, round the great
stone hall. Others found their way into
Saint Paul's, or played at hide-and-seek in
the covered walk of the old Royal Exchange,
until the merchants came at four o'clock, and
the beadles turned them out. In fine weather,
those who were anglers took a little willow
stick and line and strolled into the marshes
of the  River Lea, near Old Ford and Leyton,
or into one of the docks, where they caught
small flounders in between the floating
timber. But I and my constant companion
preferred the old Custom House quay, and
the band that used to play there in those
days; though sometimes we wandered all
along the tortuous alleys through the wharfs
at the river side, picking our way among
cases of fruit, and bags of spice, and
hogs-heads of sugar, and merchandise of every
kind, and stopping generally at Queenhithe
stairs, one of the few spots among the wharfs
which are picturesque, still preserving as it
does a Dutch quaintness, by reason of the
clean old granaries there and the trees. It
was pleasant, on a hot day, to stand upon the
rotten, weedy stairs, and watch the water
washing up, and gaining step by step with
the rising of the tide, or to see the watermen's
boats shooting the little cataracts in
the river under the arches of old London
Bridge. It made you think of pleasanter
places still, to which the running stream
would carry a cork or feather if you threw it
out, or slowly carry the boat of a lazy steerer
— cool reaches, bordered by meadows where
cattle were feeding, and studded by shady
osier islands, under which anglers fix their
punts and fish for gudgeons all day long.
There was no prohibition in the school of
boating or bathing; indeed, no one inquired
where we went, or what we did, on holidays.
Sometimes we got a waterman to row us to
Chelsea; but Garnett, who could row, would
hire a boat when he could induce the owner
to trust us with one, and pull himself; while
I sat in the stern carefully guarding my
clothes from injury, and steering. We have
been, in this way, as far as Putney, where we
found a gravelly plot of beach for bathing.
Garnett could swim, float, and play with the
water as if it was his natural element, and
he tried hard to teach me, holding up my
chin and directing me how to strike out.
But I did not learn. I was slim, and did not
float easily, and grew timid when the water
carried me off my feet.

One day we had been upon one of these
trips, and were returning on the river, near
Chiswick, in the afternoon. The morning
had been fine, but clouds had come up, and a
little rain began to fall, with gusts of wind.
Garnett said we must run in-shore for shelter,
and, if the rain continued, leave our boat at
a boat-house to be taken on to London, while
we took the coach home. To do this, I began
to turn her head across stream. Midway in
the river was another boat, with two rowers,
pulling like us against the tide, and the
alteration of our course, looking to them like
an act of rivalry, or an attempt to pass them