These friendships usually began all very much in the same way.  A chance meeting on the sea-shore, in the street, at some friend’s house, led to conversation; then followed a call on the parents, and after that all sorts of kindnesses on Lewis Carroll’s part, presents of books, invitations to stay with him at Oxford, or at Eastbourne, visits with him to the theatre.  For the amusement of his little guests he kept a large assortment of musical-boxes, and an organette which had to be fed with paper tunes.  On one occasion he ordered about twelve dozen of these tunes “on approval,” and asked one of the other dons, who was considered a judge of music, to come in and hear them played over.  In addition to these attractions there were clock-work bears, mice, and frogs, and games and puzzles in infinite variety.

One of his little friends, Miss Isabel Standen, has sent me the following account of her first meeting with him:—­

We met for the first time in the Forbury Gardens, Reading.  He was, I believe, waiting for a train.  I was playing with my brothers and sisters in the Gardens.  I remember his taking me on his knee and showing me puzzles, one of which he refers to in the letter (given below.  This puzzle was, by the way, a great favourite of his; the problem is to draw three interlaced squares without going over the same lines twice, or taking the pen off the paper), which is so thoroughly characteristic of him in its quaint humour:—­

        “The Chestnuts, Guildford,

        August 22, 1869.

My Dear Isabel,—­Though I have only been acquainted with you for fifteen minutes, yet, as there is no one else in Reading I have known so long, I hope you will not mind my troubling you.  Before I met you in the Gardens yesterday I bought some old books at a shop in Reading, which I left to be called for, and had not time to go back for them.  I didn’t even remark the name of the shop, but I can tell where it was, and if you know the name of the woman who keeps the shop, and would put it into the blank I have left in this note, and direct it to her I should be much obliged ...  A friend of mine, called Mr. Lewis Carroll, tells me he means to send you a book.  He is a very dear friend of mine.  I have known him all my life (we are the same age) and have never left him.  Of course he was with me in the Gardens, not a yard off—­even while I was drawing those puzzles for you.  I wonder if you saw him?

        Your fifteen-minute friend,

        C.L.  Dodgson.

        Have you succeeded in drawing the three squares?”

Another favourite puzzle was the following—­I give it in his own words:—­

    A is to draw a fictitious map divided into counties.

    B is to colour it (or rather mark the counties with
    names of colours) using as few colours as possible.

    Two adjacent counties must have different colours.