The vagueness of the young with respect to the age of their elders is pleasingly illustrated by the early history of a nobleman who recently represented a division of Manchester in Parliament.  His mother had a maid, who seemed to childish eyes extremely old.  The children of the family longed to know her age, but were much too well-bred to ask a question which they felt would be painful; so they sought to attain the desired end by a system of ingenious traps.  The future Member for Manchester chanced in a lucky hour to find in his “Book of Useful Knowledge” the tradition that the aloe flowers only once in a hundred years.  He instantly saw his opportunity, and accosting the maid with winning air and wheedling accent, asked insinuatingly, “Dunn, have you often seen the aloe flower?”

The Enfant Terrible, though his name is imported from France, is an indigenous growth of English soil.  A young husband and wife of my acquaintance were conversing in the comfortable belief that “Tommy didn’t understand,” when Tommy looked up from his toys, and said reprovingly, “Mamma, oughtn’t you to have said that in French?”

The late Lord ——­, who had a deformed foot, was going to visit Queen Victoria at Osborne, and before his arrival the Queen and Prince Albert debated whether it would be better to warn the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal of his physical peculiarity, so as to avoid embarrassing remarks, or to leave it to their own good feeling.  The latter course was adopted.  Lord ——­ duly arrived.  The foot elicited no remarks from the Royal children, and the visit passed off anxiously but with success.  Next day the Princess Royal asked the Queen, “Where is Lord——?” “He has gone back to London, dear.”  “Oh! what a pity!  He had promised to show Bertie and me his foot!” They had caught him in the corridor and made their own terms with their captive.

In more recent years the little daughter of one of the Queen’s most confidential advisers had the unexampled honour of being invited to luncheon with her Majesty.  During the meal, an Illustrious Lady, negotiating a pigeon after the German fashion, took up one of its bones with her finger and thumb.  The little visitor, whose sense of British propriety was stronger than her awe of Courts, regarded the proceeding with wonder-dilated eyes, and then burst out, “Oh, Piggy-wiggy, Piggy-wiggy!  You are Piggy-wiggy.”  Probably she is now languishing in the dungeon keep of Windsor Castle.

If the essence of the Enfant Terrible is that he or she causes profound embarrassment to the surrounding adults, the palm of pre-eminence must be assigned to the children of a famous diplomatist, who, some twenty years ago, organized a charade and performed it without assistance from their elders.  The scene displayed a Crusader knight returning from the wars to his ancestral castle.  At the castle gate he was welcomed by his beautiful and rejoicing wife, to whom, after tender salutations, he recounted his triumphs on the tented field and the number of paynim whom he had slain.  “And I too, my lord,” replied his wife, pointing with conscious pride to a long roll of dolls of various sizes—­“and I too, my lord, have not been idle.” Tableau indeed!