in the act of leaving one of the girls.  The pair had been in a coal-compartment.  The boy was buttoning his trousers and I guessed what he had been doing.  When I began to sleep alone in my tenth year I had no desire to masturbate, and was loath to do so by reason of ample warnings given me by my guardian and by the family physician.  One afternoon a stunted friend of mine sat down in the back yard and astonished me by tying a piece of string to his penis.  At a large private school which I now attended I made the acquaintance of the principal’s son, and wondered why he had such a fancy for dressing his 5-year-old sister in boy’s clothes.  He closed the door on me while he was thus engaged.  At my house we went to the bath-room together, and he showed me his circumcised and much-ridged penis.  Neither of us made any mention of masturbating.

At this period I fell slightly in love with a 5-year-old boy with intensely black eyes.  I would kiss him whenever we were alone, but I had no wish to seduce him.  I was always interested in watching the urination of younger children.  When I was 5 years old I went on my knees to a strange little boy in order to whisper in his ear an inquiry as to whether he wanted to urinate.  I experienced a pleasurable thrill when I was 10 years old in leading a small girl cousin to the outdoor privy, in helping her on and off the open seat, in buttoning and unbuttoning her drawers, and in gazing at her vulva.

The summer before I was 10 I lived a wild life in the mountains.  My companions were a negro girl, the two daughters of a clergyman, the two sons of a questionable woman hotel-keeper, and the daughter of the Irish scavenger.  All of these children were extraordinarily sensual.  Their leading pastime, from morning until night, was varying forms of indecency, with the supreme caress—­which they termed “raising dickie”—­as the most frequent enjoyment.  The 5-year-old daughter of the scavenger explained to us how she had seen her father approaching her stout mother with an erect penis, the pair standing up before the lamplight during the act.  This curly-headed, rosy-cheeked child handled her genitals so much that they were inflamed.  I once saw her sitting in the road and rubbing dust against her vulva.  I saw little of the elder daughter of the minister (she was 12 years old).  She persuaded me to expose myself before her in the cellar of a partially-built house.  In return for my favor she allowed me to look at her genitals.  She did not ask for conjunctio.  The two younger daughters were my intimates.  With the middle one I was forever performing a weak conjunction that consisted in the laying of my member against her vulva.  Notwithstanding all the entreaties of my little friend, I could not be persuaded to protrude my penis against her vagina; and not on one occasion can I remember obtaining an erection or extreme pleasure.  Up in the garret she straddled slanting beams